


She's Someone Named Sarah

by AmarieMelody



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Anti-Irish discrimination, Bittersweet kidfic, Flashbacks, Gen, Kid Fic, Sarah Rogers-centric, Steve Rogers-centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-26 04:46:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 27,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6224548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmarieMelody/pseuds/AmarieMelody
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam is the one that starts it. </p><p>“You know…if you want, we could name her after your mother. We could name her ‘Sarah’.”</p><p> </p><p>In which becoming a father prompts Steve's thoughts and recollections of his mother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A few notes on the labeling of this fic: 
> 
> It's SamSteve because they _are_ married in this fic. But I labeled this as "general" rather than as a ship because the focus here is not really on Sam and their marriage (this time! -winks-). So Sam is _here_ , but he's really, really not the focus. 
> 
> This is admittedly a Steve-centric & Sarah Rogers-centric fic. 
> 
> And now for the main reason why I did this fic: 
> 
> I know a lot of people, definitely myself included, love to name any child Steve Rogers has "Sarah", after his mother. Or, hell, they'll even have Bucky/Significant Other name their child "Sarah" for the same reasons. But I wanted to write a fic of my own and share with you (because I luv ya! -SQUEE!-) the question and hopeful answering of that question of what it really **means** for Steve to have a daughter named after his mother. 
> 
> What does that **mean** for Steve? As a "Man Out of Time", as a child of the Great Depression, as the son of two Irish immigrants, as a _father_? What does that **mean** for him in all those ways that have nothing to do with him being Captain America? 
> 
> So, yeah. I wanted to go all in with that question and this became a fic that's Steve-centric and I also ended up giving my take on the phenomenal Mrs. Sarah Rogers, the long-lost grandmother of Sam and Steve's child. Yep, yep. 
> 
> **Edit:** Also, huge, huge, huge frickin' thanks once again to [SilverAdept](http://archiveofourown.org/users/silveradept) for helping me out with hearing and researching Brooklyn accents and Irish brogues! Silver, as always, you're the freakin' best!!!   
>  Without further ado, I hope you all enjoy!

Sam is the one that starts it.

Sam is the one that does it.

Sam holds their newborn baby girl in his arms. 

Their newborn baby girl that they found trapped in the ruin and rubble of a demolished building during an Avengers mission. Her biological family was killed instantly, but she somehow survived and they found her and pulled her out of debris, squalling and coughing and _alive_. Her parents still hadn’t thought of a name for her and, under tons of debris, they found sheets and sheets of papers with options for names on them. 

Their newborn baby girl that they came back to check on at the hospital at ten o’clock in the morning, at three o’clock in the afternoon, at two o’clock in the morning, and at the point where the nurses merely waved them into the nursery even though it was outside visiting hours. 

Their newborn baby girl that they held just once, just twice, just thrice, just ten more minutes, no please, _just_ five more minutes, until they can’t quite remember when they fell in love with her. They can’t quite remember what life was before they settled her tiny, swaddled body in their arms. 

Their newborn baby girl that they borrowed Stark’s lawyers to keep with them and out of the system. She has no other living family. They have been happily married for more than three years, are financially stable, have a good home and are Falcon and Captain America to boot, and so they’re perfect to take her. There is no feasible way they could ever surrender her to the system and so Stark’s lawyers worked their magic in just a few weeks’ time and now she’s theirs. Yes, she’s _theirs_. 

Their newborn baby girl that they cannot yet decide on a name for. They have been trying for the past hour and a half with not even a top five selected to choose from. 

She is a perfect child and so she must have a perfect name. But, as of yet, they have no such luck in finding any kind of perfection that can denote itself. 

They can see now why her biological parents took so long. 

Sam sits in the rocker beside their child’s crib, cradling her flush against his stomach with one hand. His other hand gently rubs her purple-beanie-covered head. He yawns and uses one foot to slowly make them go back and forth. Her half-empty bottle sits at his feet. 

Steve is beside him in another rocking chair. The hospital’s thick baby name book is open in his lap. He rubs tiredly at his eyes as he thumbs through the “G’s”. 

“Gina?” He suggests. 

Sam shakes his head. “No.” 

“Ginger?” 

“Nuh uh.” 

“Ginerva? Ginny for short?” 

“Nope.” 

They give up yet again ten minutes later. 

Sam and Steve yet again sit quietly in the hospital room. They wrack their brains, struggling to find the perfect name for the perfect child. What name? What fucking name could there possibly be? They’ll be here all day and possibly all for the rest of the week if they don’t figure something out soon. They don’t have all the time in the world; this part of their daughter’s birth certificate cannot stay blank indefinitely. 

The only sounds that permeate the still, sterile air are the rocking chairs going back and forth, their breathing, and their daughter’s teeny, tiny cooing in her sleep. 

Soon, it is Sam that breaks the silence. 

It is Sam that says it. 

Sam says it and, in doing so, Sam destroys him. “You know…if you want, we could name her after your mother. We could name her ‘Sarah’.” 

Both men turn to look at each other over the sleeping baby. Sam wears that tentative little smile on his face that he does when he’s just said something that he’s sure is half-assed at best and completely unhelpful at worst. His dark-brown eyes search his husband’s face for a response. 

Steve has no idea what his face looks like. 

No idea at all. 

In the next few seconds, Sam’s own face becomes concerned and he asks, “…Steve? Steve, babe, you alright?” 

Steve can’t answer. 

Sam takes one arm away from their baby’s body so he can gently cup the other man’s face in his palm. “Hey, Steve? You wanna breathe for me? It’s gonna be alright, but I think you gotta breathe soon. C’mon, breathe with me.” 

Steve thinks he breathes with Sam. He’s sure of it. 

“Alright, great. You’re breathing”, Sam remarks with a sigh of relief. “‘M sorry if I upset you. Didn’t mean to bring up any bad memories. It was just a suggestion is all. We can name her anything else. We’ll figure it out, ‘kay?” 

Steve looks down at their daughter in Sam’s arms and he thinks that he breathes again. 

“N-no. No, I’m not…upset. You didn’t upset me. It’s alright.” 

He leans forward to gently place his hand on her tummy. He feels it rise and fall beneath the purple blanket as she breathes. Steve knows he breathes. 

He breathes with her. 

It’s just a moment before he can find his voice. “…Sarah. Yeah, th-that’s actually perfect, Sam. How about…‘Sarah Rae’?” 

Sam smiles down at their daughter, his eyes shining with warmth and wonder at her. “Huh. ‘Sarah Rae’. Well if that ain’t a perfect name for a perfect little one, hmm?” 

Perfect. 

-

She’s Sarah Rae Wilson-Rogers. 

She’s someone named Sarah. 

-

Sarah Rae Wilson-Rogers is beautiful. 

Sarah Rae Wilson-Rogers is Black. 

Sarah Rae Wilson-Rogers is the most beautiful child in all the world.

Her skin is light in her infancy but, going by her biological parents’ shades, she’ll likely grow to be even darker and more beautiful than Sam. There is a perpetual, robust rosiness to her light-brown skin; Sam and Steve are sure that every time they look at her, they’ll find the sun. 

Even on the cloudiest, rainiest days, they’ll only have to look at their daughter and they’ll find the sun shining out at them. 

Both of her teeny, tiny little hands curl and uncurl in her sleep as she dreams, further endearing her new fathers. They slip their index finger or thumb inside her fist countless times. Pride bursts in their chests when her fingers close around theirs with a strong, steady grip. 

Her hair is little more than wisps of black fuzz atop her round head. Neither of them can wait to see and feel what texture it will turn out to be. 

Her eyes are currently just barely a shade above black as with most newborns, but they can tell there will be a whole constellation of stars dancing across brand new dark-brown eyes in just a few months’ time. 

She is the most beautiful child in the world. 

She is their little Sarah Rae. 

-

The news of their sudden parenthood spread like wildfire through Sam’s family and the Avengers, well…really before Tony even opened his big, fat mouth. 

Sam personally sent the text to his mother and grandmother with the wonderful news; Steve informed as many of their colleagues and comrades as possible. 

It was not two hours since their daughter was officially released from the hospital and they brought her to their house in Washington Heights when the onslaught comes in. They were prepared for it, but still. 

_Still._

Sam’s mother, grandmother, and at least ten of his siblings and cousins demand no less than a full album of pictures, a rundown on any lasting health problems Sarah Rae may struggle with (none, thankfully), and their address so they can send things for her as soon and as often as they can. 

Their team and colleagues, meanwhile, are nine kinds of terrible. 

Bucky’s ten consecutive texts simply screech in all caps, “I’M AN UNCLE!! I’M AN UNCLE!!! I’M AN UNCLE!!!!!!!” He, too, demands nothing less than a full album of pictures. 

Natasha simply informs them that, within the day, she’ll be over their house with just about everything new parents could ever want and need for a baby. She reminds them that they’re welcome to try and lock the door.

Lt. Colonel Rhodes apologizes for this…not exactly being news at all, what with his husband’s big, fat mouth. He otherwise promises to send aviation-inspired toys and congratulates them and wishes them all the best of luck and happiness. 

T’Challa immediately calls for a celebration of the new little princess. He informs them that they will soon receive Wakandan baby paraphernalia directly to their house. 

Monica Lynne lets them know that she’s already picking out all of the styles and colors of said Wakandan baby paraphernalia. 

Dr. Helen Cho gives a heartfelt, jovial “Congratulations!” She encourages them to bring Sarah Rae down to her office sometime to visit and, over time, perhaps foster a love of science and math in yet another young girl of color. 

Dr. Bruce Banner echoes much of what Dr. Helen Cho says. He texts them a little emote of a birthday cake with a single candle for her. 

Thor agrees with T’Challa, giving a rousing, “A young addition to a young family is always time for celebration! When shall we gather in joyous festivity for the new princess?”

Clint Barton texts them “Congratulations” in ASL. 

And there are many, many more.

-

Sam and Steve have to put their foot down, lest they become overwhelmed. Being overwhelmed is not necessarily an option when two suddenly-new parents have a newborn at home. They send out word that they’ll hold three, separate celebrations/belated baby showers for their little Sarah Rae where _all_ of the gifts and well-wishes can be given and received, please and thank you. 

The first baby shower will be with their Avengers team and colleagues in Tony’s tower. The second one will be just in their home, with Natasha and Bucky. And the third, where they’ll go down south to Atlanta, will be with Sam’s family. 

There’s quite a bit of collective grumbling and grousing, but all agree to this. 

-

At the Avenger’s baby shower, Sam and Steve find that Nick Fury is the worst. 

Yes, Nick Fury is the worst. 

The absolute worst. 

The man loves people, and the kind of people he loves most of all is children of all ages. 

When Sam and Steve take their daughter to the Avengers baby shower, there are surprised congratulations, plenty of food, teary eyes, even more food, and an entire mountain of gifts for Sarah that is half T’Challa’s fault and half Tony’s fault. 

And Sam and Steve, being the kind, generous men that they are, allow everyone that wishes to hold their Sarah Rae to hold her. 

They share because they’re nice like that. And they thought a certain super spy/paternal figure would follow through with such a philosophy himself.

But it is Nick Fury that hogs their Sarah Rae for a full hour and a half of the baby shower. 

An hour. And a half. 

As soon as it’s his turn, he cradles their baby close to his chest with an ease and warmth that leaves very few surprised. He holds her in one hand, while the other holds his finely aged cognac. The shameless man parades her around like she’s his own granddaughter, showing her off to the other guests (irrespective of if they already held her), cooing and talking to her in a high, airy voice, and bouncing her lightly. Hell, even when he stops to talk to a fellow guest, he keeps up the perfect bouncing absentmindedly. 

And their little Sarah Rae fusses not once as the legendary spy hogs her. She nestles comfortably against his chest as though they’ve known each other all their lives and just looks curiously all around the spacious common room. 

Sam soon must cut in and remind the besotted man that there are still other people waiting to hold her and, well…it’d be nice if he’d please stop monopolizing their daughter. 

Please. 

Nick Fury levels Sam Wilson with a glare that earned its reputation for making even the world’s most dangerous criminals piss their pants decades ago. But Sam holds his ground and Nick sighs.

“…No one lets an old, old man have his fill of hogging a sweet baby anymore, huh?” 

“Sir”, Sam starts softly. “You’ve been hogging our daughter for the last _hour and a half_. Plus, we’ll bring her ‘round to see you again sometime. Steve and I will make sure. Honest. But for now, Dr. Helen Cho would like a turn.” 

The older man sighs again. 

He looks down at little Sarah Rae Wilson-Rogers and laments, “Welp. You gotta go back to your Daddy who’s gonna share with you plenty more people, lil lady. Try not to charm them as much as you’ve charmed me, ‘kay? People got things to do.” 

He bounces the baby once more before reluctantly passing her off to her father, grumbling about kids that don't share because they are _not_ nice like that. 

-

Next is the smaller, quieter celebration with just Natasha and Bucky in their home in Washington Heights. 

The four of them sit in Sam and Steve’s living room together; Sam and Steve are on one couch together, while Natasha and Bucky sit together on the other one. Steve passes Sarah to Natasha’s arms, first.

Natasha tenderly cradles their daughter against her breast, cuddling her close and rocking just a little. With her other hand, she lightly runs her fingers over Sarah’s little button nose, little cupid’s bow mouth, little, teeny ears, little fluttering eyelashes. Her eyes gaze dreamily into the baby’s. She catches one of Sarah’s little star-like hands and presses a kiss to the back of it. 

“ _Zvyozdochka_ ”, she croons. “Sweet, precious _zvyozdochka_ …” 

Sarah’s large dark eyes gaze sleepily up at Natasha as she continues to croon and murmur softly to her in sweet nothings of Russian. 

Natasha looks up from the baby to stare at Sam and Steve. She stares at them with that intense, penetrating gaze that can deeply unsettle those who do not know her. 

“Promise me...that you won’t let her grow up too much before her time. Promise me that you’ll preserve and protect her innocence; let her be a little girl for as long as possible. Don’t let her know all of the ugliness of the world before her time. Promise me you won’t.” 

Sam and Steve nod. 

“We promise”, they both say. 

“And”, Natasha continues. “Make sure…you let her choose her own path in life. Make sure you support her no matter what it is. So long as it’s just and hurts neither her nor anyone else…support her with everything you have. Promise me that, too.” 

“We promise”, they both say. 

Natasha stares at them for a moment more before ducking her head back down to gaze softly at little Sarah Rae. She can’t meet their eyes for a while, and so she meets their daughter’s eyes once more. 

And then it’s Bucky’s turn. 

It takes the help of all three of them to get Bucky comfortable cradling and snuggling Sarah Rae. 

“There you go”, Steve encourages. “Just make sure you support her head…yeah, like that, Buck. There you go. Perfect.” 

“And don’t worry, you’re not gonna crush her”, Sam adds. “Curl your arm a little farther in around her so she feels safe and secure…yep. Just like that.” 

“It’s okay to rock a little, too”, Natasha supplements. “That’ll help her feel safe and secure. Just make sure it’s not too hard…yeah, that’s just enough. You got it, Barnes.” 

And Bucky Barnes is holding and rocking his niece in his arms. 

He gazes at little Sarah Rae and none of the rest of the three of them can easily read his face. His right arm is the one holding her, while he has the left underneath as support. He keeps lightly rocking her and, still, the other three adults can’t read his face for anything. 

So they stay quiet. They wait. 

Their waiting soon comes to an end when Bucky, still gazing at his baby niece, starts to slowly shake his head. In the next instance, his left arm comes out from under his right and he’s covering his eyes as he struggles to keep tears in. Natasha scoots closer to him and gently rubs his back in slow, soothing circles and Bucky leans into the comforting touch. 

“Buck…?” Steve asks, reaching out a concerned hand to him. 

Sam offers worriedly, “D-do you want us to take her back, man? There’s nothing wrong with that if you want us to, y’know.” 

But Bucky can only shake his head as he loses in his fight against the quiet sobs. His broad shoulders shudder with the barely-repressed tears. He cuddles Sarah closer against his stomach. Sarah blinks and coos when just a little of his tears fall on her round cheeks. 

Steve asks again, “Bucky…?”

Bucky shakes his head again, and then he takes his hand away from his wet eyes, not bothering to cover them anymore. 

He looks between Sam and Steve and whispers, “…First I get an amazing brother-in-law named Sam Wilson. And now I get this perfect little girl for a niece? I mean…I’m an uncle? I’m _really_ an uncle? She’s mine in that way?” 

Sam nods, a smile that’s halfway-to-watery on his own face. “Yeah, Bucky. You’re her uncle and she’s your niece. This is really a thing.” 

“And that’s something that’s not going to change”, Steve adds with a watery smile on his face, too, “It’s gonna stay that way and it’s…it’s not gonna change.” 

Natasha, still rubbing his back, says, “Ditto to what both Sam and Steve say. On top of that, if you don’t calm down, you just might end up scaring the baby to death.” 

At that, Bucky laughs and looks down at his little niece. He gives her a little bounce and, with his left hand, tenderly wipes away his tear droplets from her cheeks. “Just look at me: I’m your uncle, little lady, and the first thing I do is get salt water on you. What a start, huh?” 

The other three join in his laughter and Bucky lifts Sarah Rae up to gently kiss her forehead.

Bucky taps her little round, button nose. “You’re gonna be my best girl, aren’t you? Just look at you-you’re so beautiful and you’re not even six months old, you know that? You’ll have to excuse your new uncle crying tears of happiness, ‘kay? Next time, we’ll just laugh about something together-promise.” 

They all laugh again and then Bucky is looking back at Sarah Rae’s parents with that watery smile again. 

“Thank you…thank you so, so much for her. I just…thank you.” 

None of them know exactly how or when it happens. But somehow, by the end of their little celebration together, all four of them stand together in a group hug, little Sarah Rae’s body cradled safe and warm in-between them. 

-

And lastly, Sam and Steve fly down south to Atlanta with their little Sarah Rae to celebrate with Sam’s family. 

There are so, so many cars already parked in front of and around the house by the time they arrive in their rental. They have to park on the other side of the street. But once they do park the car and are in the process of unstrapping Sarah from her car seat, they can already smell the beginnings of the barbeque; hear the gospel music; and everyone inside thrumming and humming with excitement over the new baby. 

Steve carefully carries Sarah in her car seat while Sam rings the doorbell. Sam’s grandmother answers with a huge, huge smile on her face and wide, open arms for them. 

“ _Oh!_ ” She exclaims as she embraces Steve first. “And here ya’ll are!” 

She next embraces Sam, and then ushers them into the joyous chaos that only the celebrating Wilson clan can make. She turns to look at her latest great-great grandchild in her car seat and her face melts with love and adoration. She calls for her daughter and Sam’s mother, Darlene. 

Darlene comes up to them and, like her mother, her entire face just melts upon seeing her latest grandchild. 

“So this is the precious little one. Just look at her. Why, she’s more beautiful than I could’ve ever imagined”, Darlene breathes. 

Sam and Steve can only smile proudly. Steve keeps the car seat steady as Darlene carefully unstraps Sarah, and then holds her close. She bounces little Sarah Rae with the ease that comes with years and years of practice. Sam’s grandmother comes around behind Darlene and coos at Sarah Rae. 

“ _Oh_ , isn’t this one just one of the most gorgeous little ones I ever did see?” Darlene gushes. 

Her mother agrees. “A true blessing-just as a brand new baby in the family always is. Ain’t no greater blessing I could ever think of. Lord have mercy, she’s perfect.” 

Sarah gnaws on her little fist. 

And with that, Darlene takes Sarah Rae to go and meet all of her aunts and uncles and cousins and everyone in-between. Sam and Steve, in turn, are caught up in hug after hug and congratulations after congratulations. They take seriously all of the advice for caring for their new baby and ask for even more. 

Soon, it’s time to open the presents for Sarah and there are so many happy, happy pictures taken. Sam and Steve don’t quite know how in the hell they’re going to fit all of their daughter’s new things into their luggage when they go back home (and, hell, they already have a shit ton of new things for her in their house just from the last two celebrations alone). 

After the opening of presents, it’s time to eat and _eat_. Just about every kind of meat that can go on a barbeque grill is to be found: ribs, chicken, salmon, steak, more ribs, shrimp, and hotdogs. There’s even barbequed pineapple. And the huge bowls of sides to go with the barbeque are just as plentiful: potato salad, shrimp salad, sweet potatoes, green beans, asparagus, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes, lima beans, collard greens, mac n’ cheese, and coleslaw. 

Dessert is candied yams, pecan pie, banana cream pie, regular and double-chocolate brownies, and ice cream. 

Lastly but most certainly not least, is a special surprise cake commemorating Sarah Rae’s being brought into the family. The huge, rectangle ice cream cake is so big that it takes up nearly half of one of the picnic tables in the backyard. All along its edges and down its corners is orange-and-purple frosting flowers. Also in frosting is the bright orange cursive in the middle of the cake that says _‘Welcome, Sarah Rae Wilson-Rogers!’_ Multi-colored frosting balloons beautifully frame the words all around. 

And when all of the food is either eaten or packaged for to-go plates, about half the Wilson family is about to go home, the gospel music is turned down, and Sarah is laid down for a nap in her parents’ guest room, Sam’s grandmother pulls them aside. 

She takes each of their hands in one of hers and looks between them, an expression of both reverence and seriousness on her face. “So you’re Falcon and you’re Captain America. Ya’ll two are superheroes and I’m not gonna lie an’ say that I don’t make a special prayer to the good Lord for your safety every night. Ya’ll do God’s work with what you do.” 

She gestures with her chin towards their room, where Sarah is sleeping soundly. “But now you two have a child that’s all your own. And so now you two ain’t got no greater gift, no greater responsibility than that little girl. You’re both gon’ feel some of the happiest parts of your lives and some of the most terrifying parts of your lives.” 

“But just know that there’s gon’ be times where you doubt yourselves, times where you’ll be sure that you have no idea what the hell you’re doing and you’re just makin’ it up as you go along. Even if you have five more babies after this one-”

Sam and Steve splutter at the mere thought. 

“Well, I’m just _saying_ ”, she comforts. “No matter how many times you go through this, there’s always making things up as you go along. So don’t be afraid to not know all the answers. Don’t be afraid to feel like you don’ know what you’re doing. And sure as _hell_ don’t be afraid to ask for help, y’hear?” 

“Yes, ma’am, we hear ya. Loud and clear”, Sam says. 

“We’ll most certainly ask for help. That’s for sure”, Steve says. 

Sam’s grandmother squeezes their hands and nods satisfactorily. “Good, then, boys. Very good.” 

A little later, Sam goes upstairs with his mother to sit with Sarah and Steve bounces back and forth between the backyard and the kitchen to help with the dishes. 

It’s when Steve is vigorously scrubbing the inside of a slow cooker in the sink that he pauses and looks out the window. The window faces the front of the house and looks onto the wraparound porch and all its activity. 

On the porch, some of the more elderly adults sit in the rocking chairs and swings, sipping on leftover iced tea flavored with lemon and oranges. The younger girls practice double-dutch in the driveway, their little braids wrapped with barrettes and puff balls tied with ribbons bouncing with their movements. Other young girls draw and color with chalk on the other side of the driveway’s pavement. On the front porch steps, the older girls sit at the adults’ feet, combing and braiding each other’s hair and merrily chatting away. 

Farther out and towards the street, those that are leaving to go home hug and kiss each other goodbye before they get into their cars. People do much the same in the backyard as they do on the front porch

Back inside the house, several people sit with Sam’s grandmother as they pour and gush over innumerable baby pictures of various family members and the memories they invoke. More younger children quietly play board games ( _no_ Uno) at their feet, at the coffee table and just a few more older children sit at the dining room table, sharing their favorite trap music covers and talking about this and that from school. 

Sam is still upstairs with his mother and a deeply sleeping Sarah. 

This is Steve Rogers’ family. 

This is his family. 

They embraced him with open arms and warm smiles as soon as he and Sam broke the news of their relationship to them. He’s since spent every last holiday with them, attended every last wedding, every last birthday, every last baby shower. When he and Sam visit, he doesn’t even have to set his alarm for church on Sundays and, by now, his “heathen Catholic ass” knows nearly all the hymns, all the testimonials to be had in his family’s Christian church. Sam’s mother and grandmother scold him just as much as they scold Sam when he forgets to call at least once a week and, when he does call, he’d better have plenty to share to make up for that lost week. 

He stopped tearing up a long, long time ago when the kids refer to him as “Uncle Steve”. Several times, it’s “Uncle Stevie” for when they need him as a partner in crime (he really doesn’t know where the last cookies go or who was still up watching TV at eleven o’clock at night…he really doesn’t). He also stopped tearing up a long, long time ago when the younger kids randomly plop into his lap to chatter on and on and on about their day and, oh, give him this drawing that they made just for him; he’s just a bit more used to the older kids snuggling up against his side as they ask for advice on dealing with dating, friendships, unfair teachers, and homework. 

He is not a guest here. 

This is his family. 

And so that means he should stop-

A tug on his pants snaps him out of his musing. He looks down with a smile and sees a tearful little Brianna. One of her braids is undone and she holds up a bright red barrette to him. 

“C’n you fix it, Uncle Stevie? Please?” She pleads. 

Steve smiles down at her, turns off the water, and dries his hands on a towel. Softly, he assures her, “Oh, of course, honey. Let’s fix it right now.” 

Hands finally dry, he crouches down gently to re-braid Brianna’s hair and re-apply the barrette. When he’s all done, he taps her nose affectionately and gets a hug in return. 

Steve goes back to washing the dishes, and then it’s nighttime when most everyone has gone home and the house is quiet. Sam and Steve will stay here for a few days more to rest with their daughter. Sam is knocked out after such a long, happy day and sound asleep in the bed. Steve is still up in the rocking chair, cradling Sarah. 

Steve cannot sleep. 

He doesn’t disturb his sleeping husband as he rocks back and forth in the rocking chair with their child warm and safe and swaddled in his arms. She wears a soft green dinosaur onesie underneath the blanket and a green beanie keeps her little round head warm. 

Gazing down at her is probably the closest he’ll get to sleep tonight. He snuggles her even closer and gently brushes a finger over her dark, rosy cheek that’s softer than any rose petal. His finger next lightly traces the line of her long, dark lashes that flutter in her sleep and create little crescent moon shadows on her cheeks. 

He speaks low and quiet, like this will be a secret just between the two of them. 

“There’s been a lot of celebrating, little girl”, he whispers. “And that’s because you’re the greatest celebration there is to have. I don’t know what I’m doing and this is terrifying for me. See, I’m not like your daddy; he’s so much braver and smarter than I am.” 

He traces the perfect, teeny arch of her eyebrow. “But I’ll do my absolute best, alright? I love you more than anything in the world and I’ll…I’ll figure this out. We’ll figure this out. All three of us together, you hear me?” 

Sarah Rae continues sleeping soundly. 

Steve breaks his gaze away from his daughter to look out the bedroom’s window, in-between the drawn curtains. From here, he has the view of the directly neighboring houses. How quiet they are, how peaceful they are. A great many of them are two stories, just like the Wilson house. Many of them have porches. A garage. A paved driveway or two. Little unique decorations on and around the front door like welcome mats and wind chimes and flowers. 

The people of this neighborhood are as black and brown as just about any other kind of neighborhood to be found in Atlanta. 

And Sarah will always be home here, always be safe here, in Atlanta. This is her home too, just as much as Washington Heights is. This is her family and they love her with a depth and ferocity that is unconditional. 

But Steve continues to look out the window and, though he’s still seeing the neighborhood, part of him looks beyond. Far, far beyond the neighborhood. 

About a full hundred years beyond…and behind. 

And Steve wonders…he wonders if he’ll ever tell his daughter of another home, of a different home in another part of her family. A home that is far, far away and far, far unlike this one. 

He wonders if he’ll ever tell his daughter about a teeny tenement in Brooklyn where the early morning light filtered in just right on its mismatched floorboards. 

He wonders if he’ll ever tell his daughter about the sweetness of barmbrack, the crunchiness of crubeens, or the richness of colcannon. 

He wonders if he’ll ever tell his daughter about a woman that looks absolutely nothing like her, but would love her with just the same unconditional depth and ferocity. 

He wonders if he’ll ever tell his daughter about a woman who, too, is someone named Sarah. 

-

When they finally fly back home to Washington Heights, Steve goes to his and his husband’s closet. He opens its door and looks up at the top shelf in the back. 

Where the suitcase is. 

The dusty suitcase. The raggedy suitcase. The closed suitcase. 

He thinks about how he could take the suitcase down, open it and…and think. And practice. And think some more. And…

Remember. 

He should remember for his daughter, for Sarah Rae. 

The memories that are still just as crystal clear as ever float to the forefront of his mind as he takes in the suitcase at the top shelf in the back. But those memories force that fresh, raw center in his chest to close, close, _close_. 

He was first forced to open up that center, for the longest time, back in 1940. He opened it up again after he woke up from the ice. And he opened it up once more while he was dating his husband. 

And Steve doesn’t think he has the strength to open it up all over again…not now. Not tonight. 

A deep, shuddering breath wracks his body. He blinks his eyes as though he can rapidly blink away the crystal clear memories before they become crystal clear tears in his eyes. 

He hears Sam animatedly reading to their daughter in her nursery. So he closes the closet door and goes to join them.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uhhh...just wanna caution, friends: I don't actually write/update this fast. I just had this chapter already pre-written for a few weeks now. All that this chapter needed was some moderate editing, teehee!

**Brooklyn, New York, 1913**

Sixty-four heartbeats. 

Sixty-four heartbeats is Sarah Rogers’ mornings. 

Sixty-four heartbeats that echo in her ear and thrum in tune with her own heart and whisper to her both of promises to be made and promises kept. 

Sarah slowly opens her eyes and just as slowly lifts her head from her husband’s chest to gaze at him in the early morning light. Joseph lays sprawled (or at least, as sprawled as he can be in their small, hard bed) on his back. One arm is curled above his head while the other is warm and secure around her waist. His mouth is parted in mid-light snore. 

The strenuous labor of the docks has weathered parts of him. There are new lines circling his mouth, edging his eyes, framing his brow, that were not there a year ago. There are new shadows coupled by bags under his eyes that were not there a year ago. 

There are a lot of changes to her husband’s body that were not there a year ago. 

But he’s still her Joseph. 

One of her own arms was curled over his stomach and she lifts it now to trace his face with butterfly touches. The long, straight line of his nose. The pouty curve of his bottom lip, and she laughs softly when, as he snores, his breath warms and tickles her finger. The strong, firm arch of his cheekbone. The feathery softness of his lashes that is long enough to dust shadows over the very tops of his cheekbones. The softness of his flaxen hair that’s just a shade lighter than hers. The light fuzziness of his pale stubble that he keeps closely trimmed because he’s always worried of accidentally burning her. 

Their bodies are bare and entwined under their thin sheets. Sweat sweetly dried from last night coats both of them and its faint headiness is imbedded in their covers. The used condom has since been tossed in the trash and, as usual, one of their three pillows slipped to the floor sometime in the night. 

It’s when Sarah is tracing her husband’s lips again that his arm tightens briefly around her waist and there’s a flutter behind his eyelids. 

“‘M know what that that touch means. S’meone wants breakfast…a whole hour early. Don’ let a husband get no damn sleep for nothin’”, he grouses groggily without opening his eyes. 

Sarah giggles, her laugher tinkling in the still air of their tenement. “No! Didn’t say nothin’ ‘bout breakfast! Jus’ feeling my husband! ‘Sides, how d’you know it’s a whole hour earlier than when we usually wake up?” 

Joseph’s eyes stay closed. “‘Cause I know _you_ an’ _you_ are always already hungry ‘round this time. Used t’sleep in all the time ‘fore I married you…and now look. Look at me. Can’t get no sleep for _shit_.” 

“Well, that’s your fault, hon.” Sarah climbs farther atop him, folds her arms across his chest and rests her chin on her folded hands. “No one told you to let me on top last night. I even asked if y’wanted to switch. And now? Yes, _look at you_. Got a hungry wife wantin’ food ‘cause she burned up all her energy las’ night ‘cause her husband jus’ felt like layin’ there like a cold fish off the coast of Cork.” 

“So you’re sayin’ you think it’s my fault?” 

“‘Think’?” 

Joseph finally opens one sky blue eye to peer her. “…Alrigh’, Sarah, luv. Alrigh’. Not even eight o’clock yet an’ you’re already startin’ up that tally, huh?” 

Sarah can’t help but giggle again and wink at him. “And y’say it like you ever _finished_ that tally by the end a’the day.” 

A slow grin comes to Joseph’s face. “Oh, but y’know I do add to it, yeah?” 

“Yeah, you do-”

Sarah’s stomach growls. 

“…See?” Joseph laughs. “Can’t get no damn sleep with you. None.”

They laugh together, and then take their sweet, sweet time untangling from each other and slipping out of bed to put some clothes on and start their quiet Sunday. 

They’ve built a routine together. 

They’ve yet to find a Catholic church that feels safe and welcoming to them in this foreign land called New York City. And in-between Joseph’s job at the docks, Sarah’s job hunt, and their keeping up their home and further doing their best to integrate into this country, there’s not been that much time to find one anyway. Sarah is eager to find a home anew in God’s house while Joseph is, as usual, just a bit more patient. 

So for the first part of their Sunday morning, they sit on their only lumpy, threadbare couch, pull out their only Bible from their faded, splintery desk, and read and discuss their favorite Bible passages. There’s really no specific number of passages, no set time limit they set. 

Sarah picks out _Johns 1:6_ -“But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind”. When it’s his turn, Joseph picks out _Galatians 6:9_ -“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up”. And so on and so forth. 

With every page turn, they feel more comforted. Stronger. Braver. 

Together. 

Next is food and cleanliness. 

Sarah busies herself with making their bed while, barely ten feet away from her, Joseph prepares breakfast in their kitchen. After making the bed, Sarah carefully combs her hair in their little, cramped washroom.  
Next, she takes some change out of their money jar, goes out to the corner right outside their tenement, and buys a newspaper. 

By the time she comes back inside their home, the tantalizing scent of breakfast wafts into her nose. Joseph whistles merrily to himself as he flips the untrimmed bacon, stirs the boiling potatoes in the pot, and then whisks the eggs in the cup for the nth time. Newspaper in hand, Sarah skips up to him and pecks him soundly on the cheek. Joseph gives her a smile that’s bigger and brighter and better than the burgeoning sunrise outside. 

Sarah sets the newspaper down in the middle of the table. Then, she pours them each a glass of orange juice while Joseph flips the finished bacon onto two separate plates, and then cooks the eggs in the same pan. 

And soon they’re eating a good breakfast of bacon, scrambled eggs, boiled potatoes, and orange juice. Husband and wife sit side-by-side at their rickety wooden table, in their rickety wooden chairs and eat as they read the newspaper together. 

They’ve found that newspaper reading in the morning is a great, quick way to learn America’s strange version of Standard English. They combine these lessons with the more interactive lessons of learning Brooklyn’s own strange version of vernacular English simply by speaking to and with the born-an’-bred residents of this place.

Over a year has passed since they stepped off the boat, and still, these Brooklyn folk speak so, so strangely to their ears. People from Brooklyn especially hate the letter “h”. Why do they hate the letter “h” so much? It’s “‘Ey, you!” and “‘Ello, miss!” and “What in the ‘ell is wrong wit ya?!”. 

Strange, strange Brooklyn folk. 

It’s a slow, difficult process the Rogers struggle with, but it’s a process that they take on together. 

Just like they take on everything.

Together. 

It’s Sunday, Joseph’s only day off work from the docks and, well…work is the only thing they currently don’t do together. 

And Sarah’s not quite sure if she can take much more of not doing that part of their lives as partners, as a unit. 

She cuts into her potatoes and starts slowly, carefully, “Joseph, darlin’?” 

“Hmm?” He looks up from reading page four and smiles at her. 

Taking encouragement from his smile, she replies, “There’s a lady, a Mrs. Dottie Montfield, that’s offering a job.” 

“Oh yeah?” Joseph’s eyes shine. “What kinda job?” 

“A job that pays. It pays pretty good”, she hedges. 

The smile starts to fall from her husband’s face and falls quick. “…Sarah. It’s not nursin’, is it?” 

Sarah lets out a huff of frustration. “Dammit, Joseph-”

“You promised me.” 

“This isn’ about promises, husband a’mine. It’s ‘bout surviv-”

“You promised.” 

Sarah closes her eyes and prays for the patience that she knows the good Lord will take His sweet, sweet time in delivering to her. “We’ve been through this. Over an’ over again.” 

She doesn’t have to open her own eyes to know that Joseph has closed his too. “Y’know, indeed, we have. So ‘M not really sure what we’re doin’ havin’ it for the thousandth time.” 

Sarah’s eyes snap open. “ _Joseph Rogers._ I know I promised you. I know that. But it is a _job_.” 

His eyes snap open as well. “No, it is a _promise._ And that promise was that you wouldn’ take a maid/servant job, no matter how good they promise to pay you. You remember that promise? That was as soon as we could step off that boat and onto this island.” 

“Yeah, y’know what, Joseph? I did make you that promise, but it was a stupid one to make. I made it ‘cause we were both scared and excited on that boat and we thought we could give each other everything and anything. Give each other the whole goddamned world if we just tried hard enough.” 

“Sarah, luv-”

“But that’s not happening, Joseph. It’s just not.” She leans closer to him, the beginnings of fiery irritation in her eyes. “You see just about every other woman ‘round these tenements going out, doing what they have to do no matter how much they don’ like it alongside their families. It should be no different with me and you.” 

“ _Exactly_ , Sarah. They’re doing what they need to do to even when they don’t like it.” He grasps her hands tightly in his, sky blue eyes pleading with her to listen. “And you know what they go through, what they come home with. You saw how Mrs. McFarland came home with goddamned _blisters_ on her hands because they wouldn’ let her use the fucking potholders. Or Mrs. Keegan? They had her workin’ twelve-hour days, seven days a week and _I_ at least have Sundays off-”

“Joseph, for God’s sake-”

“-and when she passed out from exhaustion on her own fuckin’ front door and she couldn’t come into work the next day? They replaced her the very next mornin’. And then what ‘bout little Ms. McGinnis, hmm? Lass is barely fourteen-years-old, she made _one_ little mistake in their special lil dinner parties and they cursed her to the depths of hell and back ‘till she ran home cryin’ an’ all her Pa could do was hold her ‘till she slept. A fourteen-year-old lass, Sarah.” 

“Yes, they’re put through hell an’ back! But they contribute to their household. So why in the name of Jesus Christ d’you think I’m too good to go through what they go through, huh?” 

“Sarah, I’m not thinking you’re too good for that. I’m not thinkin’ either one of us is too good for anything”, Joseph says. “I’m only thinkin’ that I don’t want my own wife to go through that shit. I don’t and I can’t. ‘M sorry, but I don’ care if it means I’ll always have to work the docks or-” 

“But I gotta watch my husband break his fuckin’ back six days a week just so that he can afford to make me breakfast in the morning? You can’t watch, but I got to?” Sarah’s eyes are starting to swim and they’ve gone through this so many times by now that she doesn’t even care that she may be wiping her eyes soon. Hell, Joseph is usually the one to wipe her eyes anyway. 

Her husband’s voice becomes quiet, shamed. He still holds her hands in his. “I know. I’m sorry. Good Lord help me ‘cause ‘M selfish an’ I’m sorry. But it’s just…Sarah, you know there’s jus’ something about going into a workplace and they treat you less than shit…and you do that for even just one month and you’ve already been forced to pay them more than they’ll ever think to pay you. And what they’ve forced you to pay can’t be counted in green paper.” 

“You’re right: workin’ the docks is takin’ a toll on me. But I’m selfish all over again in that I don’t care if they treat me less than shit, but ‘M not able to handle it if they treat my wife less than shit, too.” He gives her hands a gentle squeeze. “Sarah, least let me come home to the knowledge that you’re safe from that, huh? Least let me have that.” 

Sarah searches Joseph’s face and wishes for there to ever be a day when she can say ‘no’ to it when it looks like that. When it looks so pleading, so imploring of her. She doesn’t pull her hands away from his. 

Her voice, too, has gone quiet. “…That’s not fair to put it like that-talkin’ about ‘letting you have least that’, like me sitting my ass ‘round the house doin’ next to nothin’ all day while you’re lucky to even be able to sit down for your fuckin’ lunch break is a gift to you. That’s not fair to frame it like that and you know it.” 

“And I’m sorry for that, too. ‘M sorry for not being fair and I ask both your and the Lord’s forgiveness. But you’re not _really_ sittin’ around the house all day; you’re still-”

Sarah’s voice raises just an octave. “Yes, _still_ , Joseph. _Still._ Looking. For. A. Nursing. Job. The other part of that godforsaken promise to you. You realize it’s been over a fuckin’ year, right?” 

Her husband’s face goes soft and endeared at the mention of her nursing. A brand new smile sets a gentle glow over him and Sarah wishes that she’ll someday learn to say ‘no’ to that, too. He lets go of one of her hands to brush a stray strand of hair away from her brow. 

“You love nursing. That’s what you did back home before shit went to shit in our town, and that’s what you still want to do to this day. Nursin’ is your passion and you’re _so_ incredible at it. So you should be able to do it.” 

“Joseph…baby, please. A whole lot of people have passions that they love and things that they’re good at besides servin’ and labor. But that doesn’t change that there’s no way to do them here an’ there are mouths to feed.” 

“Okay, but there’s a hell of a lot of people getting’ sick ‘round these New York tenements”, he says. “And hell of a lot of joes gettin’ injured workin’. Clinics and whatnot poppin’ up all around here. Someone’s gotta give you a job somewhere, sometime.” 

“But they’re not doing it _right now_. They don’t want us pot lickers darkening their doorstep. It’s just…Joseph, please. I know I love nursing, but I’m holdin’ out for somethin’ that’s most likely not gonna happen; hell, I looked at and was rejected from five places last week alone. _Five._ And money isn’t comin’ in any fasteer.” 

And neither one of them need a reminder of how Sarah sobbed in Joseph’s arms as soon as he came home from work. Sarah damn near soaked his shirt through with her tears as discouragement, panic, and terror at never again doing the work she loves ripped her apart from the inside out. 

Joseph held her in his arms the whole time. 

Joseph brushes her hair away from her face again. “No, no, it’ll happen, luv. It’ll happen. _Someone_ has to take you. They do. And they will. Just keep hoping; keep your promise to me.” 

A small, sardonic smile comes to her face even as her eyebrow lifts. “You want me to ‘keep hoping’, huh? Where exactly do we have room for hope in somethin’ like this?” 

Joseph blinks and glances all around their sparse, teeny tenement. “Well…we don’ got much of nothin’ else, luv. Hell’s wrong with a little bit of hope, eh? Food, warmth, and shelter cost money. But hope don’ cost nothin’ but a prayer, a beatin’ heart, and another prayer right before you go to bed at night.” 

Sarah is slowly shaking her head before he’s even done. 

He holds both of her hands in his again. “I know you don’t like it and I know you want to work. I know I’m being selfish. Again, I’m sorry. But…please keep your promise to me. Please, just do this one thing for me and for the rest of our marriage, I’ll never ask anythin’ difficult of you ever again. _Please_.” 

Joseph is still making that face that Sarah can’t say ‘no’ to. He’s making that goddamn face and the worst part is that he’s probably only half-aware that he’s making that face and it’s destroying her on this Sunday morning that was supposed to be quiet and easy. 

Sarah squeezes her husband’s hands back, gives a deep, shuddering sigh, and squeezes her eyes shut. When she opens her eyes, she shakes her head at him again and disengages from him. She turns away from him to clear the dishes from the table. 

She’s quiet when she walks away with him with the dishes and she’s quiet when she starts scrubbing them in the sink. 

Joseph gets the hint; he leaves the table to go start the laundry. 

But Sarah only makes her hint-the _dance_ of her hint-last for the rest of the morning and just a little part of the early afternoon. 

Sarah is in the middle of drying the dishes when Joseph comes back to her, already done washing and ringing out the first load of clothes. He comes up behind her and lightly places his hands on her waist; she swats at him with the towel. He goes away. 

Joseph next tries to tickle her side as he passes by. Sarah just barely slides out of the way and mimes biting him. He goes away. 

Lastly, during the early afternoon, Sarah is washing the next load of laundry when Joseph comes up behind her to lightly play in her hair. Sarah keeps the grin as small as she can on her face and waits for his reflection to come clearer in the warm water. When he is and he’s just over her shoulder, she flicks water at his face. He gasps while she giggles. He goes away. 

Soon, Sarah has their crubeens (a rare treat for them) cooking for lunch while Joseph is out on their fire escape, wringing and hanging up the freshly-washed laundry on the clothesline. She saunters over to her husband and wraps him in a hug from behind. 

“Ahh”, he says as he hangs up one of her dresses. “So _now_ I’m forgiven…after you’ve racked up that tally to even greater heights.” 

Sarah smiles against his back and gives him a squeeze and a kiss to his back. 

He leans slightly out of her arms to pull a shirt out of the laundry basket. “Well, I’d be happy that I’m forgiven, ‘cept that I don’t even know who you are. See, my Sarah, my wife, usually doesn’t make a tally so high and in just one day, at that. So ‘M afraid that I don’t even know who this new, strange woman is that’s hugging me.” 

Sarah giggles and simply drops another kiss onto his back. “Then why donchu you come inside and find out who I am, sir? I could refresh your mem’ry over lunch and…also refresh few more activities after lunch, if ya like.” 

“Nope”, he says as he finishes hanging up the shirt. “I ‘preciate your offer, but I don’ know if I’d be comfy with that, miss. ‘M a faithful man to my wife. Sorry.” 

“Well, alrigh’. The offer is open, though, if you ever change your mind.” Sarah sighs and releases him. 

Sarah is barely halfway to the kitchen when Joseph grabs her from behind and attacks her with the mother of all tickle attacks.

“Ach! _No!_ ”she cries. 

She wriggles this way and that to escape his fingers softly digging into her sides and her belly, shrieking in laughter all the while. 

-

**Brooklyn, New York, 1916**

Joseph enlists. 

The Great War rages out of control like Brooklyn’s summer heat. 

No one can turn on the radio, open a newspaper, open a magazine, step into a theater, or even stroll down the sidewalk without being saturated with it. Every day, a new headline. Every day, a new interrupting breaking news bulletin. Every day, a seemingly insurmountable death toll. 

The powerful leaders of the world have lost their fucking minds. The soldiers of the world have lost their fucking way. The civilians of the world have lost their fucking lives. 

And it’s loud. All of it is so, so goddamned _loud_. Even when their teeny Brooklyn tenement has the doors and windows closed (but rarely, else they’ll perish in this hellish heat) and there’s quiet permeating their home…the loudness of the Great War penetrates every last space of air, every last corner of silence until everything and anything is ringing. 

The world is loud…

…And Sarah is quiet. 

She stands staring out the kitchen window. Her arms are crossed tight across her stomach. She can neither see the crowded black and grey that makes up the concrete jungle of New York nor can she smell the delicious dinner Joseph is cooking for them. 

“I gotta help, Sarah, luv”, he says softly as he adds salt and pepper to the pot of colcannon. “Too many good people dyin’ over there, tryin’ to help and save people from dangerous nonsense. I gotta do my part; I gotta help.” 

Sarah is quiet. 

Joseph glances at his wife’s back as he stirs in the seasonings. He tries again. 

“‘M not sayin’ that it’s a wholly good fight. ‘M not being blind. I know this hellhole of a country isn’ the big good guy they think they are-not anywhere close to it. But if putting on a uniform is a way to help save innocent people, then I’m doin’ it. Not gonna do anythin’ I wasn’t brought up to do, anythin’ wrong at all. Y’know me.” 

Sarah is quiet. 

Joseph, done stirring, lays the wooden spoon down on the stove and replaces the pot’s lid. He tries again. 

“Plus, it’s…I hear it’s good money, Sarah”, he says. “I may not be here, but it should hold you over a lot better than dock money. An’, hell, surely you’ll find your nursin’ job in the meantime ‘cause a lotta ladies may be joining to be army nurses. Lotta spots open for you, huh?” 

Sarah is quiet. 

Joseph turns away from the stove and stares at Sarah’s still, rigid back. His hands instinctively lift to smooth away that rigidness until there’s at least some semblance of soft, easy relaxation. But he forces himself to let his hands fall back down to his sides. He waits. 

And waits. 

But Sarah is still quiet. 

Her silence is going to make him vibrate right out of his skin and splatter onto the floor. His heart pounds and a light sheen of sweat breaks over him, his body automatically going into distress in response to hers. Futilely, his eyes try to catch hers in the reflection of the window. 

Sarah is still quiet. 

His voice holding just the slightest tremor, Joseph whispers, “Sarah, luv. Please look at me…please.” 

That unlocks the rigidness of her body until some of that familiar softness returns. Though her arms don’t release her stomach, she turns a little ways back towards him.

Just enough for him to see her face. 

Her mouth is closed. Her jaw is tight. Her eyes are dry. 

Sarah’s eyes are usually the loudest part of her: he can always hear her laughter in them before she actually laughs, her sobs before she actually sobs, and her compassion before she actually acts and speaks. But now, her eyes are the quietest part of her and he can hear absolutely nothing. 

Nothing at all. 

Before Joseph can say anything, she turns fully to him, and then walks in-between him and the stove. He moves out of her way. He watches as she stirs the halfway-done colcannon just one last time, and then she sets the spoon to the side. Replaces the pot’s lid. Shuts off the stove. 

She turns to him and- _there_. 

He reads in her eyes a sob that she’s not yet made. 

In the next second, she’s wrapping him in a tight, tight hug. She’s squeezing him around his waist to the point where it’s just shy of difficult for him to breathe. Sarah holds him even tighter and snuggles her head against the middle of his chest, right where she can hear his heartbeat in her ear. 

He immediately takes her in, wrapping his arms around her in turn. He’s looser in his grip, careful of his greater strength, but he holds her close. So, so close. Joseph remembers the last two times she hugged him like this. 

When they first stepped onto that boat to leave their native Ireland…and when they first stepped off that boat in this strange, hostile land they call America. 

Joseph remembers. 

“…Joseph?” Sarah whispers.

He can hear the lump that’s the coming of sobs in her throat and he rubs her back warmly. “Yeah, Sarah?” 

But she only turns her head to bury her face in his chest and fist her hands in his shirt, wrinkling the thin material. He lifts one hand from her back to run his fingers through her hair, lightly scratch at her scalp. 

“Joseph…”

-

Sarah doesn’t remember seeing her husband off at the train station. 

-

Sarah can’t stay in the tenement without her husband there. 

Besides, it’s right smack in the middle of June and so it’s just too fucking hot anyway. It’s quite literally safer to stay outside, under the blaze of the sun than it is to stay inside the confines of the tenements.

No, there’s no way in hell that she’ll ever be able to stay inside the tenement with so much heat and absolutely no Joseph. 

But that’s just as well-she has an unattainable nursing job to acquire. 

Sarah is perhaps lucky: she soon finds and circles a whopping four open nursing positions in the paper. 

She travels to all of those places in just one day, wearing the best dress (the one with the least holes, stains, and frayed hems) she owns and the newspaper tucked into her only purse. She dares to let hope and determination bloom in her heart. The easy part is to walk in the door with a professional smile. Yes, that part is always easiest. But the hardest part is when she must open her mouth to introduce herself and the entire room can hear that leftover Irish brogue barely concealed by a burgeoning Brooklyn accent. 

That is the part where they bluntly refuse to shake her hand and suggest a nearby place that may require a scullery maid. 

And the part after that is where Sarah must go home alone and hold herself as she falls apart. She’s not sure how much longer she can do this, how much longer she can keep having doors slammed in her face and some chances of prosperity ripped away from her. 

Not for the first time, Sarah wonders why in all the hell this shithole of a country took down their NINA signs long, long before she came here. 

-

In-between the unbearable heat that’s slowly cooling into the crispness of autumn and her futile job search, Sarah Rogers’ husband sends her letters. So, so, many letters. 

He writes her every single day; she stares at the consecutive dates on the pages. She wonders why in the hell she’s surprised. 

Every time she gets an envelope out of the mail, she cradles it warmly in her hands. She smooths her hand over the surface. Over the crinkle here. The fold there. The postage stamp paid for by the Army. She lifts the envelope to her nose, hoping deep in her heart to scent her husband even if the letter made its way to her from far, far across the sea. 

But all the scents the letters have to offer her are the stench of gunpowder. 

Sarah stops sniffing the envelopes and just sticks to Joseph’s pillows. 

She forces herself to wait right up until she goes to bed to read them. Yes, just _right_ up to the point where she climbs under their thin covers and flicks on their little bedside lamplight to read. Joseph’s letters are her greatest treats and treasures of her day and so she intends to savor them as such. 

Sarah snuggles under the covers, lies on her side, double-checks that her head is comfy on the pillow, and takes great care opening her husband’s letters to her. After she unfolds the papers, she spends a good thirty seconds not even reading their content, but gazing longingly at Joseph’s all-block letters handwriting. 

And then she reads. 

Not a single letter is less than two pages long, back-to-back and a great many of them are even three to four pages. And, still, Sarah takes her time reading and re-reading all of them. 

He tells her of his new comrades and friends. Hockney, who is from Chelsea in their very city and radiates warm smiles and good hugs like it’s nothing. There’s Camden, who tells _the_ funniest goddamned stories that you’ve ever heard with a straight face. Also is Ketcher, who carries photos of his wife and all eight of his children on his person at all times. And then there is Simmons, who hails all the way from Kansas and holds their group of friends’ record for most shots successfully downed. 

It’s quite often that the letters talking of his friends are accompanied by pictures of all five men together. Though Joseph details as much as he can in his writings where he currently is, he always puts a little caption for her underneath the picture. 

He tells her funny stories of parts of grinding military life in his sardonic way. The food isn’t always the best; you get used to other people that snore like chainsaws mixed with freight trains and you get used to them _quickly_ ; you learn to appreciate a nice, dry sunny day if you know what’s good for your pants and boots; and, depending on the time, relieving yourself is the trickiest puzzle you’ve ever solved in your life. 

Sarah understands that he doesn’t tell her more.

But even more than he tells her in his letters, he asks her. Asks and asks and asks. Is the money he’s able to send her good enough? Is she eating well? Is she sleeping well? Does she need new clothes? New shoes? New coats and jackets? New anything? Has she made any new friends that she wants to talk about? Has she found a good church for them yet? How goes their neighbors?

Has she kept her promise? 

Sarah folds the latest letter and tucks it under her pillow for the night, and then turns off the light to go to sleep. And in the morning, as soon as she wakes up, she writes back to him, a serene smile on her face and an aching longing in her heart the whole time. 

-

Sarah finds in the newspaper an open nursing position in Hempstead clinic. The village of Hempstead is over an hour from Brooklyn by subway train. 

So Sarah wakes up long, long before the sun is in the sky to catch the subway train. She puts on her best dress and her best coat (there’s just that little bit of biting September crispness in the air) and tucks the newspaper into her only purse. Once again, she dares to let hope and determination bloom in her heart. To keep herself awake and upright on the train, she reads and re-reads the newspaper. 

By the time she reaches her destination, the sun is just rising over New York. It doesn’t take Sarah long to find the address of the clinic and she’s just in time to be arriving about thirty minutes after they first open.

Sarah is about to march right up the steps, head held high, when a flare of red catches her peripheral vision. It’s a woman, surely a fellow Irish woman, with flaming red hair tied up in a bun and a huge, huge bag of cleaning supplies slung over her shoulder. Sarah can see the ends of a broom sticking out from the top of the bag. The woman looks and moves with an exhaustion etched into her body that neither comes from one too many nights of bad sleep nor will be healed by several nights of good sleep. 

_You promised me._

Sarah takes a deep, deep breath, clutches the lapels of her coat close around her throat, and struggles to force down a trembling born of panic and desperation. She continues her march towards the clinic. 

Once inside, the clinic is just shy of bustling in this early hour. Sarah’s eyes immediately zero in on a woman working at the front desk. She’s tall and rail thin with dark-brown hair tied up in a severe bun, sharp green eyes examining medical charts, and pinched mouth becoming even more pinched. She does not look up at the sound of Sarah’s entrance. 

The woman’s demeanor triggers Sarah into a state of memorized, paralyzing state of terror. All she has to do is open her mouth and it’ll be all over. Just like all the other times. Another cruel, icy cold ‘no’, another back turned, another door slammed in her face. And she’ll go back home with or without tears in her eyes, defeat in her heart, and fear in her stomach. And then she’ll open the next day’s newspaper, circle the open position, travel to the place as soon as she can and…and the cycle will start all over again. 

All she has to do is open her mouth. 

Sarah’s heart pounds up into her throat as nausea roils in her stomach. Every last one of her muscles are locked and coiled like a spring to turn and bolt out the door, never to come back. Her hands grip the handle of her purse until her nails dig into her palms and her knuckles bleach white. 

_You promised me._

The woman looks up from her work and, upon seeing Sarah, paints a cordial smile on her face. “Good morning. May I help you, young lady?” 

Sarah forces herself to go on autopilot. She comes closer to the desk, hand outstretched. 

And opens her mouth. 

“Yes, ma’am. My name is Sarah Rogers and I’m a nurse. I understand that you put an ad in the paper for an open position as a nurse in your clinic?” 

That cordial smile vanishes in less than a blink. The woman ignores Sarah’s hand, gets up, dusting herself as though the truth of Sarah’s heritage and origins has left some irrevocable taint on her own person.

She gathers up the medical charts in her arms without looking at Sarah. Her voice is cool. “Yes, well, unfortunately we just recently filled that position. Thank you for your interest, but I’m afraid you’ll have to look elsewhere.” She turns to walk away. 

This would be the time Sarah would find herself on the other side of the door…but that panic and desperation make her voice is about twice as cool as the woman’s. 

“You’ve already found someone in this huge city even though you only posted the ad just yesterday morning? And if you don’t remember the exact date you posted it, I can gladly refresh your memory with the very newspaper right here.” 

The woman freezes, back ramrod straight. She turns just a ways to shoot Sarah a stabbing glare. 

But Sarah refuses to back down and glares right back. 

She stands up; she pushes back. 

They can’t say ‘no’ forever. 

She turns all the way to fully face Sarah, though she clutches those medical charts to her as though they’re an ample barrier between them. “Look, it’s nothing personal. And if you want to be frank, your kind of people should’ve just stayed on the other side of the Atlantic-”

“Where is your manager?” 

The woman stands just a little taller. “You’re looking at her. I’m Mrs. Tamara Copeland.” 

Sarah stands up taller, too. “Then there’s no one stopping you from at least giving me a chance.” 

“You already got a chance: you walked yourself into my clinic. Good day, Mrs. Rogers.” She turns to go. 

“W- _please!_ ” Sarah cries. “What kind of patients do you have right now?” 

Mrs. Copeland stops for a second and looks back at Sarah with a cold, imperious eyebrow raised.

Sarah allows nothing but determination and confidence to show in her face and stance. Nearly a whole minute passes as they stare at each other. 

_You promised me._

The other woman heaves a great sigh and drops the medical charts back onto the desk. She places her hands on her hips and replies, “Alright. As of this very second, I have three patients needing attending to: I have a canal worker that just came in with a busted calf; a three-year-old with a fever that won’t break; and an elderly woman with stomach cramps caused by too much intake of dairy products.” 

Sarah doesn’t blink. “If you’ll let me wash my hands, and then show me where the materials are, I can take care of every single one of them right now.” 

“And will I have to _show_ you how to use the materials, Mrs. Rogers?” 

“I said show me where they are, not how to use them, Mrs. Copeland.”

Another heaved sigh. “…Then follow me.” 

Sarah perfectly splints the canal worker’s calf; mixes a homemade, traditional Irish remedy for the child’s fever that has it coming down within the hour; and, after listening to what kind and how much of the dairy she’s had, she mixes yet another remedy for the elderly woman. 

She washes her hands again and looks expectantly at Mrs. Copeland. 

The other woman’s mouth is more pinched than ever. There are the beginnings of a grudging respect in her eyes that Sarah honestly wants none of; it never should’ve been so goddamned difficult for her to walk in this clinic’s door or any other door, for that matter. 

She just wants to be able to do her job, to be able to be a nurse. This woman has nothing more to do with that than signing her fucking paycheck. 

The words seem to be dragged from the very depths of reluctance. “…We open from seven to seven, six days a week. A lot of times, as you can imagine, we don’t get out until nearly eight”, the other woman says. “You got all your holidays off and, if you need a special day or so off, just…come an’ talk to me beforehand. This place is hectic enough as it is.” 

“Understood”, Sarah replies. 

Mrs. Copeland continues, “I pay you what I pay everyone else here; you can confirm that with…your new coworkers. Lunch breaks are thirty minutes and bathroom and smoke breaks are even shorter. You don’t know where something is or how something works, _ask_ or else you’ll make bigger messes for me to clean up. Any questions?” 

“Can I start today?” 

The other woman blinks, and then leaves Sarah to go to a back closet. She returns with a packaged nursing uniform, complete with cap and shoes. She hands the package to Sarah with no pretense of ceremony.

“You can start…tomorrow morning. Get yourself some rest and get your affairs in order like everyone else, Mrs. Rogers.” 

“Y-yes, ma’am. Tomorrow morning.” Sarah cradles the package in her hands as though it was made by the good Lord Himself and she’s not quite sure what she’s doing holding it. 

Mrs. Copeland nods curtly, though there’s less of that pinch in her mouth. “…Good. And…perhaps do yourself a favor and work on getting that Brooklyn accent. Good day, Mrs. Rogers.” 

_Fuck your Brooklyn accents. Fuck all your New York accents._ “Y-yes, good day.” 

All during the subway ride back home, Sarah looks down at her brand new nursing uniform. And all during the rest of the walk back home, Sarah clutches her brand new nursing uniform. 

It is only when she’s safely back inside her tenement with the door locked behind her that she collapses from the inside out. She’s vaguely aware of the sounds of her purse and coat falling to the floor as she stumbles to the teeny bathroom. She barely manages to flick on the light before she crumples down to lay supine on the floor’s cool, faded tile, still grasping her new nursing uniform. 

A deep tremor runs down Sarah’s spine to radiate out to the rest of her body. She closes her eyes as her body shudders several more times. The tremors wrack her body and…and cleanses something out of her at the same time that they rush something into her. It is at no particular point when the tremors become so powerful as to shorten her breath. Her chest heaves as the sounds of her uneven gulps and exhales of air echo throughout the small bathroom. 

She turns her head, letting that side of her face indulge in the tiles’ coolness. A shaking hand leaves her package to clumsily undo the bun at the nape of her neck. She only barely registers the teeny clattering of her bobby pins sliding to the floor. That same shaking hand haphazardly runs through her hair to further release it, uncaring of any tangles. 

Her ragged breath becomes harsher and louder and the trembling becomes sharper and stronger before they finally temper. When she opens her eyes at last, the low fluorescent light of the bathroom’s single bulb is harsh and she blinks. Though Sarah shed no tears, she wipes both hands over her face repeatedly. A few more shuddering breaths and another tremor, and then Sarah is laughing. 

Quietly, disbelievingly laughing. 

She did it. 

She’s a nurse.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I have no excuse for how long this took save for the fact that this chapter was emotionally taxing to write.

**Mid-March, Brooklyn, 1917**

Yet another routine letter from Joseph comes in the mail. 

But this time, the letter is accompanied by a package. 

A package. 

Sarah’s heart pounds and her hands tremble as she sits alone at their rickety kitchen table to open the package and the letter. 

She opens the package first and her hands…her hands freeze when they meet something that’s both fine and airy. Sarah blinks and looks all around her empty tenement as though there is an answer to be found. Slowly, she pulls out whatever thing is inside. 

It is a cloche hat. 

A royal blue cloche hat. 

Sarah stares at her hand on the fine, delicate material of the hat as though they belong to someone else. She’s not sure she’s ever felt something so…so satiny, so airy in all her life. The brim of the cloche hat is just wide enough to provide Sarah modest shade from the sun. An elaborately-woven flower springs out of one entire side of its band. Both the flower and the band are an even darker shade of royal blue than the rest of the hat. Sarah watches her hand finger the painstakingly-crafted, flaring petals and feathery stamens. The tag attached to it only shows the name of the French store it originated from, but not the price. 

She carefully sets the hat away from her, on the other side of the table before she reaches into the package again. This time, her hands touch tightly-wrapped paper. Just as slowly as she pulled out the cloche hat, so she slowly pulls out the wrapped contents. She’s so, so careful and so, so slow as she unwraps the paper to reveal the contents inside. 

It is a dress. 

A royal blue dress, the exact same shade as the hat. 

Sarah watches her hands unfold the dress, and then hold it up and out. Its collar sports four parallel white lines, two on each half of the collar, that go straight down and wrap around to the back of the top of the dress, much like a fashionable version of a sailor’s uniform. The collar dips down low enough to show off the décolletage. Her eyes trail down to take in the three-quarter sleeves that taper into dainty cuffs held together by two simple, stark-white buttons. The middle of the dress looks to hug the waist closely, and then it softly billows out to the pleated bottom. 

She carefully folds the dress back up and places it under the hat. 

Sarah next rushes to open the envelope and finds that there is not a letter inside. 

But a train schedule. 

With a mid-afternoon time and a date less than one week from today circled. 

On the bottom, below the schedule chart, is an arrow denoting that Sarah should flip the paper to its back. And on its back reads in Joseph’s block letters: 

_Be my best girl at the train station?_

-

Eight months. 

Eight whole months since she’s last seen her husband. Last held her husband. Last made love with her husband. Last seen her husband with her own two eyes. 

For eight entire months-just four months off of a whole _year_ -all she’s had in place of her Joseph are the dozens upon dozens of letters he’s sent her. 

But now she’ll see him again and have him again all to herself for a full two weeks. 

On the early morning of Joseph’s arrival, Sarah stands in front of their washroom’s mirror as she dresses in her new clothes. It’s barely five o’clock; the sunrise is far, far away and Joseph’s afternoon train is even farther away. But Sarah couldn’t quite sleep anyway. 

She’s never in her life felt something so fine, so delicate touch her skin as she steps into the dress. She pulls it up, up, up her body and she bites her lip as she worries that it may not fit. But she needn’t have worried-whether Joseph is right here in this tenement with her or thousands upon thousands of miles far away from her across the Atlantic, he knows his wife’s size and taste. 

The dress gives not a single protest of fabric as Sarah pulls it up over her knees, and then her thighs, and then her ass, and then her stomach, and then up, up, up over her chest and shoulders. The dress does nothing but slide and whisper against her skin as she puts it on. 

It fits just fine. 

Next is her cloche hat. There’s just the slightest tremble in Sarah’s hands as she picks it up from the edge of the sink. She made sure to put her hair in a nice, simple bun that needs as few bobby pins as possible. That was a good choice; the hat fits just fine on her head, a flawless balance of snugness and maneuverability. 

And then Sarah is stepping back from the sink and looking at her reflection in the mirror. 

Jesus _Christ_ , she looks like…like one of those women that live just nestled up against the Upper West Side. 

Sarah stares at herself in the mirror and she wonders…she wonders if this is the start of a new time in their lives. She’ll keep making fairly good money as a nurse and…and when Joseph comes back home for good from the war, he could possibly find another, better job. Maybe they won’t always or ever again have the money for such hats and dresses. 

But they could move out of here. 

Out of these alternatively sweltering and freezing Brooklyn tenements. 

They could move out and never, ever come back. They could have a better, healthier, happier life. 

Sarah lets the fantasy play out in her head as stares at her reflection. But the necessity for breakfast before the long, long trek to Grand Central Station soon beckons her to the kitchen. She’s extra careful because of her new clothes as she eats her simple buttered toast, yogurt, and coffee. She’ll stop on the way to the subway to pick up some fruit to eat both as part of breakfast and to hold her over until she gets back home. 

Back home. With Joseph. 

Sarah blinks and she’s on the way to Grand Central while eating an apple. She blinks again and she’s in the middle of the hustle and bustle of Grand Central’s Main Concourse in the mid-morning. By the time Sarah arrives, it’s early yet before the soldiers’ train comes but it’s still crowded with other people also waiting early for their loved ones. 

Self-consciousness washes over her as she searches for a bench to sit down and wait. Her hands nervously adjust and re-adjust her perfectly-positioned cloche hat. Her hands tug at her collar; pull at her hem. She wonders if there’s anyone here who knows she’s a woman from the rat tenements of Brooklyn and this is the finest outfit she’s ever worn in her life. Sarah nervously fingers the end of her bun under her cloche hat at the thought that someone may openly stare at her and/or outright yell at her for being an imposter. 

But no one looks at Sarah for longer than a polite glance and certainly no one yells at her. Sarah finally finds a bench and she shares it with an Italian woman and her two children. Sarah calms down significantly as she engages with the woman’s, Isabella’s, polite small talk and watches her children play quietly at their feet. They share soft, gentle laughs at how they struggle to understand each other through their accents; Sarah’s is that Irish brogue with burgeoning Brooklyn while Isabella’s is that Florentine flourish with burgeoning Harlem. 

The train arrives and they part ways.

Hundreds of soldiers pour into the Main Concourse from the train tracks. 

A great many of the returning soldiers are of the 107th Infantry Regiment. 

The 107th. 

Joseph’s 107th. 

Sarah is readjusting and tugging and pulling at her clothes again as she searches for her husband’s face in the new wave of people. It feels nigh impossible as she navigates the roiling sea of searching and reuniting people. She does her best not to look at those reuniting as they catch each other in hugs and kisses and tears and exclamations. A cold tremor enters her body as she keeps looking for Joseph, but can’t find him. 

All she wants is a head of flaxen hair. 

A nice, tall head of flaxen hair. 

And below that nice, tall head of flaxen hair, a pair of sky blue eyes that last destroyed her far, far too long ago. 

Sarah circles through the Main Concourse twice and still she can’t find him. Panic drums her heart into a staccato rhythm and springs tears into her eyes. Was she so caught up that she read the train schedule wrong? Is this the wrong day? The wrong train? The wrong regiment? Wrong, wrong, wrong? 

Sarah is in the middle of circling once again when that nice, tall head of flaxen hair peaks out at her over several other heads. 

That nice, tall head of flaxen hair with a pair of sky blue eyes. 

Joseph stops, obviously having been in the middle of searching for her, too, and smiles clear and bright at her. 

There’s a seizing in Sarah’s muscles for all of a few seconds and then she’s tearing her way through the crowd. She’s rude as she thoughtlessly shoves past irritated and affronted people and she swears she’d be outright sprinting if she wasn’t in the middle of such a huge, near-stifling crowd in the middle of Grand Central. Joseph, too, tears his way through the crowd, but he has an easier, nicer time of it. Maybe it’s easier and nicer because he’s so much taller than her and can comfortably see above most people’s heads. Maybe it’s because his legs are longer, and so it takes him less time to get to her. Or maybe it’s because he has some tact left to say “excuse me” and “I’m sorry”. 

Maybe it’s all of those things and none of those things at the same time. 

As soon as Sarah gets in range, a sob wrenches from her throat and she throws herself at him and clasps her arms tight, tight, _tight_ around his neck. It’s by the grace of her toes skimming the floor that Joseph doesn’t have to support all of her weight. She vaguely registers the sound of Joseph’s suitcase hitting the ground as his arms close tight, tight, _tight_ around her back. 

Close, close, _close_. 

It isn’t until Sarah buries her face into Joseph’s neck that she realizes she’s staining his uniform with hot, salty tears. Maybe (yes, yet another maybe) she told herself that she wouldn’t cry. It could’ve been right after she read his note on the back of the train schedule, it could’ve been just before she got dressed this morning and, fuck, it could’ve been on the way here that she told herself she wouldn’t cry. There’s no earthly reason to cry and potentially ruin Joseph’s uniform. 

But it’s Joseph and he’s real and he’s here and he’s breathing and he’s warm and he’s solid and it’s been eight _fucking_ months and he’s in her arms and the U.S Army won’t dare steal him away from her for another whole two weeks. 

Joseph holds her even closer; her ability to breathe is getting short, but she could care less. When she feels a returned dampness on her shoulder, it only makes her sob harder. Her husband’s arms tighten around her body. 

It’s a good, long moment before one of them can speak again. It’s Joseph. 

His muffled voice is hoarse and broken with tears. “Sarah, luv. You kept your promise to me…you kept your promise.” 

Sarah nods into his neck and gives a laughter half-full of delirium. “Yeah, hon. Y-yeah. I did. I did it.” 

“You did it; you’re a _nurse_. Just like I always knew you would be.” 

“Uh huh…yeah, Joseph. ‘M a nurse, now.” 

They pull slightly away from each other and just drink in the other’s teary face. Joseph brushes her cheeks in turn and cups her chin; Sarah brushes a hand over his brow and whips his cap off his head so she can run a hand through his hair. 

War has further weathered her Joseph. 

The lines circling his mouth, edging his eyes, framing his brow are deeper than the docks made them. The shadows coupled by bags under his eyes are darker than the docks made them. 

There are a lot of changes to her husband’s body that are more than the docks made them. 

But he’s still her Joseph. 

Joseph softly smiles at her as he wipes at her tears. “There now, Sarah, luv. No need to cry anymore; I’m here, now.” 

Sarah giggles around a sniffle. “No, actually, hon? ‘M cryin’ because I can’t decide if I want you back home to cook breakfast for me again or if I want you to get your ass back to the front lines so you can keep sendin’ me such nice things.” 

Joseph bursts out laughing at that. His eyes alight and his lips curve up in that easy, jocular smile that Sarah loves so deeply. He pulls even farther away from her to sweep his eyes over her outfit. His face brightens all the more. 

“You like it, then?” His eyes lift to meet hers. “You really do like it?” 

Sarah nods vigorously. “Oh, no, I _love_ it, Joseph. I love it. I really, really do. I can’t possibly tell you how much. Thank you.” 

“‘M happy you do, luv. I’m so, so happy you do.” 

He pulls her into his arms again and she holds on tight. 

-

They can’t keep their hands away from each other during the trek home. On the subway, Sarah sits so close to her husband that she all but sits in his lap; Joseph keeps one arm wrapped closely around his wife’s shoulder while his free hand tightly clasps hers. 

And when they finally get back home, they simply revel in being able to stand in their doorway while hugging each other tight once again. Sarah buries her face in Joseph’s chest; Joseph nuzzles his head atop Sarah’s hat. Joseph’s suitcase lays forgotten at their feet. 

Sarah soon disengages from him and starts undoing his buttons. 

Joseph scoffs, but stays still. “Y’know that if I’m too tired to be on top tonight, Sarah, you won’ let me hear the end of it come mornin’.” 

“Oh, no, darlin’”, Sarah corrects. She looks up him through her lashes, a smile on her face. “I don’ want that just yet. You stink of gunpowder and…dirty soldiers. Y’need a bath. Thought I’d help you, if you don’ mind.” 

Joseph blinks and then grins. With a slow, grand sweep of his arm, he whisks her cloche hat off her head. “Do pardon me, my darlin’ Sarah. ‘M quite grateful that you wanna help me get cleaned up. I’ll return the favor, hmmm?” 

“You sure will, Joseph. You sure will.” Sarah winks at him. 

The pain of eight months past and two weeks impending dissipates as they prepare for a bath. They take their sweet, sweet time undressing each other and their sweet, sweet time starting their bath water. When they finally step into the bathtub together, a part of them expected to make love. But they’re having far, far too much fun just… _being_ together. Just _playing_ together. 

Together. 

Like they’ve always been. 

Their play is interspersed with passion. Sarah splashes Joseph every chance she gets and in retaliation, Joseph tickles Sarah’s sides, feet, and the back of her knees every chance he gets. And in the next moment, Joseph’s hand brushes over her breast and she sags against him, one hand tenderly sliding up his stubble-dusted jaw and into his dripping wet hair. When the water is turning cold, they take their sweet, sweet time again in washing, rinsing, and finally drying each other off. 

Joseph’s homecoming makes dinner a special occasion. Sarah saved up money, money she can say she fucking _earned_ with confidence, to buy them pig feet and make them a special, special batch of crubeens. Joseph’s face brightens and he helps her in the kitchen by taking over the peeling and mashing of the potatoes. A sigh born of nostalgia and contentment comes from both their souls as they work together. 

Lord Almighty, it feels like home again. It _is_ home again. 

After dinner, they cuddle on their lumpy, threadbare couch. Sarah asks Joseph to tell her more about his time abroad. But Joseph insists that she first tell him all about her new job and show him her new nursing uniform. Sarah agrees, but only if Joseph will close his eyes until she’s dressed in it. Joseph chuckles and obliges. 

She finally finishes fixating her nursing hat on her head and announces, “Ta-da!” 

Joseph opens his eyes, looks at her in all of her nursing glory and exclaims, “Sarah, honey, you look _wonderful!_ Jus’ like I said-I always knew this day would come!” 

Sarah’s face threatens to split from how widely she’s smiling. She sits down next to her husband and tells him all about her new job. Every last detail from how Mrs. Copeland gives her a grudging respect that she ignores; how her coworkers are just a tad bit more accepting, and otherwise cordial and professional; how she doesn’t take but a minute to fall in love with her patients; how she feels so, so much better just to be able to leave home, do something for most of the day, and earn her own money. When Joseph picks her up and swings her ‘round and ‘round, her laughter echoes all throughout their tenement. 

Just before they go to bed, it’s Joseph’s turn to share with his wife. Sarah snuggles down into his lap as he pulls out new pictures and tells her as much as is safe to tell her. He tells her even more stories of Hockney, Camden, Ketcher, and Simmons that range from being funny as hell to being tender on the heart. 

Sarah turns her head to plant a kiss on his jaw. “I’m so happy you got yourself some good friends over there, baby”, she sighs. “I…I still never wanted you over there period. But if y’had to be there at all, ‘M glad you weren’ alone. I thanked the good Lord every day for that.” 

“Me, too.” Joseph drops a kiss in her hair. “An’ I thanked the good Lord every day that you were safe an’ sound over here.” 

When they finally fall into bed, their lovemaking is hot and frantic before slowing down to thorough and languid. The exhaustion of the day hits them full-force as their sated bodies prepare for sleep. But even as they lay down entwined in each other’s arms and facing each other, Sarah doesn’t want to fall asleep. 

She _can’t_ fall asleep. 

Her eyes and hands are too busy tracing and retracing and retracing her husband’s face and body. She has to remind herself that he’s here with her-he’s really, really _here_ -and he won’t be snatched away from her again for a long time to come. They have just a whole two weeks together, but Sarah focuses on rememorizing Joseph just in case he disappears in the morning. 

Just in case. 

Joseph looks about ready to drop dead in her arms, but he smiles softly, sweetly at her. He lifts one hand from her waist to brush at her sweaty hair. “Sarah, luv, you gotta go t’sleep. Y’gotta close your eyes. Please, it’s alrigh’. Jus’ go to sleep with me.” 

But a panic settles in Sarah’s stomach at the thought of going to sleep, waking up in the morning and finding what she fears to be true: that Joseph won’t be there, that this has all been a dream. She frantically shakes her head and says nothing. 

He still smiles at her again; he knows her fear without her having to say it. “‘M real. I’m here. Righ’ here with you. An’ I’ll still be here in the mornin’, hon. I won’ go any damn place at all.” He plants a gentle kiss on her lips. “Jus’ go t’sleep for me…go to sleep for me…” 

“Y’promise you’ll be there, though?” 

“Always, luv. Jus’ close your eyes an’ you’ll see…” 

Sarah’s eyelids betray her and become far, far too heavy to keep open. They flutter down, feathering away the image of Joseph’s tired face from her. 

_An’ I’ll still be here in the mornin’, hon…_

-

One night, Sarah finds out another, newer way in which war has changed her husband. Weathered her husband. 

She wakes up not to Joseph’s blazing, reassuring heat, but to a cold, cold side of the bed. Her hand stretches out into the space that her husband is supposed to occupy and a panicked jolt goes through her body. She calms down somewhat and her sleep-clouded mind runs through the possibilities of where Joseph could be. Sometimes…sometimes he’s gotten up to use the washroom. But when she listens in and can’t hear the toilet flushing or the floorboards creaking from anywhere else in their tenement, Sarah throws the covers off and gets up. 

The mid-March chill whispers through their open windows and Sarah pulls his jacket over her nightgown. She pads away from their bed and...finds Joseph in their kitchen. 

He sits quietly at their kitchen table. In the dark. He’s hunched over a half-empty glass of water. One hand holds his head while the other is braced on his knee. His back and shoulders ripple with shuddering, uneven breaths. And for all Sarah can discern, her husband didn’t even hear her. 

Sarah tugs his jacket closer around her and calls out softly, gently, “…Joseph?” 

But Joseph is quiet. 

She comes closer, one hand outstretched to him. “Joseph? Joseph, darlin’?” 

Joseph is still quiet. 

She comes even closer, her heart pounding. “Joseph, honey, can y’hear me, now?” 

Joseph is still quiet. 

Sarah gently touches her hand to his tense shoulder. He gasps and jumps about a mile high, nearly toppling the glass of water over. And when he snaps his head up to look at her, she can see even in the dark that his eyes are wide with shock and fear. The shadows under his eyes look more like bruises than anything else. 

“Shh, shh, shh”, Sarah immediately comforts. Her hand slides over both of his shoulders in a careful half-hug. “Shh. Joseph, baby, it’s me. It’s just me.” 

He’s panting, loud and raggedly. His eyes are wide and he blinks up at her in bewilderment. He blinks even more and his eyes are searching her face. 

The part of Sarah’s mind that’s not quietly, but profoundly panicked wonders if this would be better if she briefly left Joseph’s side to turn on the lights. But she wants to stay right here, right where she can see Joseph and he can see her. She keeps her hand around his shoulders, while the other brushes his hair back from his brow; she waits as calmly and patiently as she can for some kind of response, some kind of recognition from him. 

Joseph is blinking again and he whispers, “S-Sarah…? ‘M sorry, I…I…” 

Sarah nods and forces a smile. She moves both of her hands to tenderly cup his face. “Yeah, Joseph, it’s me. Sarah. Your wife. The one who makes you get up early to make her breakfast.”

He gives a short burst of laughter at that and it sounds _so much_ like her Joseph that tears spring to her eyes at the sound. A trembling threatens to spring into her hands too, but she forcibly keeps herself steady. 

But his laughter soon dies out. He rubs his chest with shaking hands and laments, “So sorry, Sarah, luv. I woke you up. You’re supposed to be asleep; y’need your sleep. Y’got work in the morning. ‘M sorry, I just…I thought I was back…back _there_ again an’ I…I-”

Sarah gently shushes him again. She moves the glass of water farther across the table and climbs into his lap. A great bit of her husband’s shaking subsides as she snuggles down, warm and weighty, against him. One hand goes back into his hair while the other clasps one of his hands in her lap. Joseph clings to her hand while holding her tightly with his free arm around her waist. 

“Joseph, look at me. It’s alrigh’”, Sarah soothes. “You’re not back there anymore. You’re not goin’ back for a good, long while.” _And dammit, I wish you didn’t have to go back at all. I wish you never went in the first place._

Joseph blinks at her again. “Y-y’sure, luv? You think so?” 

Sarah nods with a warm smile on her face. “Yeah, hon. I’m sure; I know so.”

She brushes his hair back from his brow again, and then pulls him so that his head is cuddled against her chest, right over her heart. She feels a futile, but strong hope that the sound of her heartbeat will drown out the sound of the war he endured. And when a wet shudder goes through Joseph’s body and he clings even tighter to her, Sarah thinks it just might’ve worked. 

She holds him back just as tightly and drops kiss after kiss after kiss into his hair. “That’s right, hon. ‘M right here. Listen to me; stay with me.” 

Sarah doesn’t know how long they sit there at their rickety kitchen table in their rickety kitchen chair in the middle of the night. But she soon feels something hot and wet slide down her chest and, even years later upon her deathbed, she doesn’t hold it against the good Lord that she let something hot and wet slide into Joseph’s hair in turn. 

-

Sarah has a slightly better time remembering seeing her husband off at the train station. 

-

**Late January, 1918**

It’s been ten months now since Joseph last had a leave way back in March of last year. 

Ten months. 

It was only through constant letters and work and prayers that husband and wife managed not to lose their minds from longing for each other. And so when Joseph comes home, there’s thrice as much to cry over, thrice as much to embrace, thrice as much to share. 

On the first few nights of Joseph’s leave, they banish the frigid, penetrating cold of their tenement by making love far more often than usual. 

They forget the condom. 

-

“…Sarah, dear? Didja catch the usual stomach bug goin’ around?” Katherine, one of her coworkers, worriedly asks. She holds Sarah’s hair up and away from the vomit. 

Sarah pauses to take a breath, her ragged panting echoing through the toilet bowl. As soon as every breath stops bringing the threat of bile, she turns her head to give a dry grin to the other woman. 

“W-well, I…don’ think so. But…probably.” 

Katherine doesn’t return the smile. She lets go of Sarah’s hair to rub warm, soothing circles on her back. Her native southern accent comes out in her concern. “It’s ‘probably’ somethin’ serious; this is the fourth time today you’ve thrown up an’ it’s not even lunch time jus’ yet. Why doncha lay down for a while over yonder, huh, darlin’?” 

But Sarah shakes her head and moves to get up. She’d agree with Katherine because a sick nurse around patients is a sick nurse that’s endangering patients. Sarah feels like absolute shit…but she’s not too sure Mrs. Copeland will be too happy about this. “No. T-too much…work to do. We’re short today, too-”

“Rogers”, Mrs. Copeland’s gruff voice sounds from the bathroom’s door. “As soon as you can move, get your ass out of my clinic and straight home. Call if you can’t come tomorrow and don’t come back at all ‘till you’re feeling better.” 

Well. That answered that. “But Mrs. Copeland-”

“Rest, Rogers. Now.” 

Sarah sighs in defeat and makes to clean herself up. 

Mrs. Copeland nods. “Thank you.” 

She gives the woman a sarcastic salute coupled with a dry smirk. She can feel a fever coming on and coming on _quick_. “Aye-aye, Cap.” 

Her stomach thankfully settles down as she leaves work early and hops on the subway to get home. Sarah’s stomach is still behaving when, midway home, she decides to take a detour to buy some…donuts. 

Just a little bag of nice, hot, melt-in-your-mouth donuts. They’re just what anyone ordered in the middle of this chilly, frigid winter. 

And Sarah would feel the unforgiving cold that’s a New York City winter if not for the raging heat boiling under her skin. 

Her stomach starts up again as she lets herself into her tenement and she wishes her husband was here to take care of her. 

Sarah puts her donuts away in the cabinet for later. She takes some medicine and a nice, long nap blissfully uninterrupted by anymore trips to the toilet. It’s not until close to midnight when she wakes up with an urgent craving for those donuts. She scarfs down every last one and licks her fingers clean-

 _Oh._

-

Once Sarah hastily pens the wonderful, surprising news to Joseph, it’s all Joseph’s next letters talk about. 

_All_ they talk about. 

His handwriting, too, is scribbled and rushed as he gushes on and on and on about their unborn child. With just about every other letter, he sends her a package containing something for the baby. The first thing is a stuffed purple elephant with a smiling face; second is a package of cloth diapers; next are baby bottles; and the latest is a downy blanket that’s so impossibly soft and warm to the touch that Sarah wonders if it’s even real. 

Joseph is certain their baby is a girl. 

Sarah is certain their baby is a boy. 

And names…they argue like the married couple they are in their letters over names. Hell, they fight even more than they do over the gender. And Sarah knows that when Joseph finally comes home for good, their fights will only get even more nonsensical and humorous. They don’t really care about which gender their baby will be and they’ll most certainly come to a true, happy agreement on their child’s name in due time.

Still, it’s fun to argue in the letters.

 _“Joseph, baby. If you’re going to come up with about thirty different name options in case we have a girl, then it’s only fair that you come up with more than four names for a potential boy”_ , Sarah writes.

Sarah can just feel Joseph’s pettiness blazing from the page when he writes back, _“Why do I have to prepare for a potential when there’s a guarantee instead?”_

 _“Joseph. I am on my fourth donut as I am writing this to you. Work. With. Me.”_

_“Fine. Maybe Steve. Steven-something._ ”

 _“The fuck is this ‘something’, husband a’mine?! You know what? I’ll just tell the doctor to write that on the fucking birth certificate, huh?”_

_“Blegh. Steven Daniel?”_

_“Fuck no._ ” 

_“Steven James?”_

_“Absolutely not._ ” 

_“Steven Michael?”_

_“Read this carefully, husband: I am about to divorce you over a letter._ ”

_“Okay! Steven Grant. Call the boy-that-we’re-not-having ‘Steven Grant’ if you want.”_

_“Steven Grant. Perfect. Beautiful.”_

_“Great. Good. Now can we talk about the five new names I have for our daughter? I think…_

Sarah smiles softly to herself as she reads and then writes back. She caresses her stomach, which is still mostly flat, for the thousandth time since she discovered her pregnancy. A baby. 

_Her_ baby. 

_Their_ baby. 

They’re going to have a real, live baby together. 

Together.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, ya'll! Happy New Year to you! 
> 
> Umm... _wow_. It's been about 2 years since I last updated this fic, huh? And that, my darlings, is because this particular chapter was hard for me. Really, really, **really** hard. I was literally bawling my eyes out tryna write this, my god. 
> 
> Because this is really fucking sad. And I wrote myself into a corner with this really sad chapter. Like, I be thinking to myself _why did I do this to myself?! What the hell was I thinking, this hurts something awful!!_
> 
> I think we all know what happens here, given last chapter. And, umm...well, I do hope that I was able to write out of my corner. And I do think that, now that I finally got over the hurdle of this chapter, the rest of the story should be much, much easier for me to write. Still gonna cry, but not as much, y'know? 
> 
> I hope ya'll enjoy and if you cry...-offers silk handkerchief-

**April, Brooklyn, 1918**

Another letter comes in the mail. 

But it is not a letter from Joseph. 

It is a letter from the U.S Army. 

Sarah carries a basket of groceries in one hand from her early morning errands. So she slowly opens and reads it with mostly her free hand. She still hopes that it’s from Joseph but, instead of ink in the shape of his block letters, the ink is in the shape of impersonal words straight from a typewriter. Sarah finishes reading and she blinks in confusion. She can’t understand what the words are conveying. 

Sarah reads it twice…thrice…

Still, she can’t understand. She wonders if…if there’s been some kind of mistake-there are literally millions of soldiers fighting all over the world and even a million more families left behind at home. So surely this could be a mix-up that’ll be cleared when Joseph-

“‘Ey, lady! _‘Ey!_ ” someone angrily shouts. 

Sarah blinks again and looks up from the letter to see that she’s standing in the direct path of a fruit stand. The irate vendor that shouted is glaring holes into her head. 

The man throws his hands up in irritation. “Ya gonna buy somet’in, lady, or ya jus’ gonna stand in the way a’my business here?!” 

Sarah opens her mouth to say…something. Something. But nothing comes out. She can only stand there, mute, and further irritate the vendor and warrant a few passerby to glance worriedly at her. She can feel other looks of irritation on her back as people who want to get to the fruit stand have to maneuver around her to do so. 

Sarah closes her mouth and walks home. 

She’s slow and quiet as she treks up, up, up the stairs to her tenement. Once she’s on the other side of her door, she goes straight to the rickety kitchen table and sets both her groceries and the letter from the U.S Army atop it. She next sits down in one of the rickety chairs in front of the groceries and the letter, open and upright on the table. For both a moment and an eternity, she sits still and stares unseeingly at the letter. 

Her hand goes to the teeny, round bump of her stomach. She’s hungry-her _baby_ is hungry. She bought groceries this early morning because she didn’t have much in the cabinets and so she had to go out and get fresh food. And now her basket is sitting atop the table, its contents unloaded and uncooked. Sarah should…she should get up and cook them for breakfast. And then eat them. 

She should make herself some breakfast. 

-

On her next day off, Sarah looks all around her tenement and sees that it needs cleaning. Serious, thorough, top-to-bottom cleaning. She ties a wrap around her hair and an apron over her waist and starts well before the sun is in the sky. 

The dishes need washing, drying, and putting up in the cabinets. So Sarah washes, dries, and puts them away in the cabinets. 

The stove and counters need scrubbing, and then an additional scrubbing after that just to be safe. So Sarah scrubs them down twice. 

The dirty laundry needs a good, thorough washing. So Sarah settles down to wash them. 

She’s silent as she flits all around the tenement. Working here, working there, working everywhere. 

The letter from the U.S Army sits, open and untouched, on the kitchen table. 

Every now and then, Sarah absentmindedly touches her stomach. 

She’s just about to hang the laundry up on the clothesline to dry when the knock comes on the door. It is a gentle knock, an unhurried knock. 

Sarah freezes, back ramrod straight and hands still on the nightgown in her hands. She stares at the door and does not move, her mind blank as ever. The back of her mind that is capable of roiling and churning wonders if…if it could be _him_ …

The knock comes once again and it’s just a tad louder, just a tad faster. Sarah shakes her head to herself, sets the laundry aside, and gets up. Her hand is steady when she opens the door- 

A woman, a man, and a baby smile at her. 

A family smile at her. 

There must be something on or about Sarah’s face because their smiles fall slightly, but quickly. They even appear to collectively lean away from her; the man, who is holding the baby, cradles the little one even closer to his chest. The woman and man share a glance and Sarah wonders if her face does something else. 

The woman is the first to recover. She clears her throat and greets in an Irish-Brooklyn accent not at all that different from Sarah’s, “‘Ello, there! ‘M Winifred Barnes, but I go by ‘Winnie’. M’family an’ I just moved here from another tenement in Brooklyn. It’s not much different, but, y’know, new people an’ all that. So we jus’ wanted to say hello! So…hello!” 

She happily nods in turn to the baby and the man. “These are m’two boys righ’ here. This little one is our James-James Buchanan. We were blessed with him way back in Indiana jus’ last year. And this is my husband, George. He jus’ got back from the front lines and it looks like he’s home to stay, thank god.” 

George gives her a big, big smile that sickens Sarah with its sincerity. He lifts his son, James, higher up on his chest. “Pleased t’meet you, ma’am!” 

Winnie and George pause, obviously waiting for her to return their greetings and introduce herself. But Sarah doesn’t even bother to open her mouth. 

James gnaws on his father’s shirt collar and stares at her. He lets out a distressed little whimper and curls in closer to George’s chest, away from Sarah. Both of his parents subtly move to comfort him. But James barely looks to be anything close to mollified and his parents smile apologetically at her. 

“Don’ take it personally, ma’am”, George comforts. “James is usually an outgoin’, friendly lil thing, but he can be shy e’ry now an’ then.” 

Winnie laughs. “Oh, yeah. Y’know what they say about babies: you think they _finally_ let ya in on how they work, and then they change the rules on you at the las’ minute!” 

But Sarah neither joins in the other woman’s laughter nor affirms her joke. 

The Barnes’ jocularity dies a quick and painful death and they shuffle awkwardly; little James gives another whimper that’s closer to a sob this time. 

Winifred glances down at Sarah’s stomach. She instantly brightens and tries again. “Oh! You got a lil one on the way yourself?! Why, congratulations!” She steps in just a little closer. “Have you thought of any names, yet? Y’know, George an’ me fought for _days_ over our James’ name. Ain’ that right, baby?” 

George laughs, his eyes twinkling. “Well, I think it was more like _weeks_ , hon. And we-”

Sarah shuts the door in their faces. 

-

The weekend comes around and Sarah once again silently goes about cleaning up her tenement. She soon gets to take down the dried laundry from the clothesline. She first folds up what goes in the wobbly, splintery dresser-undergarments, nightgowns, hair covers, and the like. After that, she hangs up what goes in the closet-shirts, dresses, pants, and more dresses. 

It’s when Sarah is hanging up one of the last few of her dresses that she spots something dark and rich peeking out at her from the other end of the teeny closet. Sarah tilts her head in confusion; she doesn’t think that she owns any clothes that would be dark and rich. She abandons her current chore for the moment to pull it out from the other lineup of clothes. Even when her hands touch the fine fabric, she still doesn’t recognize it until she sees it. 

The dress. 

The royal blue dress. 

Sarah’s eyes slowly drift upwards to spot the royal blue cloche hat that came with the dress sitting on the single shelf above. She looks back down again to the dress. 

_Be my best girl at the train station?_

Something trembles deep, deep inside the earth. The trembling is both scorching hot and freezing cold and it gets stronger and stronger with each passing second. It tears itself into every last one of Sarah’s muscles, every last one of Sarah’s bones, pounding and beating through every drop of her blood and it doesn’t _stop_. 

Sarah is the only one that somehow stops; Sarah is the only one that somehow stands still. 

Her hand is still on the dress. 

“I _was_ your best girl, Joseph”, she whispers. “I put on this dress and this hat and I met you at the train station. I held you and then I brought you home with me. Twice. And before that, I married you. I got on that boat with you. I came to this hellhole with you.” 

The trembling gets even stronger-how does it get stronger? 

Sarah’s free hand goes to her stomach. Her whisper is lower, hoarser. “I’m even carrying your very own child and you…you fucking…you mother _fucking_ …” 

There’s an implosion in the trembling and it explodes into something screaming. The screaming is loud and shrill; it rips and tears through the air at the same time that it screeches the earth to a halt and brings the earth crashing down, down, down. 

Sarah finds both of her hands on the dress and then she’s ripping it. 

Shredding it. 

Tearing it. 

The horror of the sound of the fabric splitting and unraveling as Sarah rips it from the hem upwards cannot drown out the terror of the sound of her screams ripping from her throat. Even when the dress is in multiple pieces, Sarah further destroys those too. 

And when the dress lies dead in nigh-unfamiliar strips, Sarah ferociously snatches the matching cloche hat off the shelf and desecrates it in much the same way. The easiest part of destroying the hat is yanking the woven flower out of its shape and then wrenching it out of its band; she shreds apart that strip of fabric, too. The hat itself is hard to destroy, but Sarah doesn’t care; she nearly sprains her hand as she determinedly tears through it. 

The cloche hat soon lies dead in nigh-unfamiliar strips, too. Sarah turns to lay waste on everything else in her line of sight. She yanks the buttons off of the shirts she tears; she hurls hangers and baskets and boxes at the walls. 

The whole time, she can’t stop the screams. 

She can’t stop screaming. 

Sarah is tearing the lamplight plug out of the socket and then launching the lamp at the wall where it dents the plaster and shatters when the front door is thrown wide open. 

The Barnes burst in, eyes wide and mouths open with worry and alarm. All of the other neighbors are either holing up inside their tenements or have come out into the hallway to see what all the violent commotion is about in the Rogers’ household. 

Winnie and George stop and stare at the delirious woman in front of them. They watch, frozen, as she goes about destroying her home and everything in it. She didn’t even pause in her destruction to see who rushed into her house and she doesn’t pause still as they stand blankly in right in her doorway.

George is the first to snap out of his shock; he makes for Sarah, hands instinctively lifted to comfort her, to help her calm down and…and stop destroying things in her home that’ll surely be far too expensive for her to replace in the future. He works his mouth a few times to make something come out that’ll mollify her even a little bit. 

But it is Winnie that chances a look at the rickety kitchen table. 

The rickety kitchen table with the open and untouched letter from the U.S Army atop it. 

Winnie springs into action. She intercepts her husband, holding her arm out to stop his advance towards the other woman. “No, stop! Stop! Get out of here!” 

George stops, but doesn’t leave. He looks in distressed confusion at his wife. He watches Winnie quite possibly risk her life as she comes up behind Sarah and grabs her hands before she can finish ripping up her last pillowcase. Sarah somehow has the breath to scream even shriller in outrage and elbows Winnie hard in the ribs. Winnie gasps and doubles over at the sharp pain. George surges forward. 

But Winnie stops him again, eyes hard and determined. “ _No_. ‘M fine. Leave, George.” 

George is about to protest, but Winnie turns her attention on the other woman that looks about ready to cut her throat with a piece of broken lamp. Winnie steadfastly tries another tactic; she turns Sarah around and firmly cups her face in her hands. She stares directly into those wide, wide eyes brimming with nothing but grief and shock. 

“Look at me. Listen to me”, Winnie pleads. “It’s goin’ to be _okay_ - _you’re_ going to be okay. You’re not alone; I’m here now. Can y’hear me? Can you understand me?” 

Sarah trembles anew in Winnie’s grip. Her breath is a high, ragged wheezing that she can’t seem to slow and deepen. She stares at the other woman and somehow she can see everything that is warmth and truth in their depths. Sarah tries blinking several times to dispel her image, but she remains as she is: steady, solid, and real. 

Winnie lets a soft smile come to her lips and keeps her hold on Sarah’s face. She nods encouragingly. “That’s it, sweetheart. That’s right. Try an’ calm down, now. Stay focused on me; stay right here with me.” 

_That’s right, hon. ‘M right here. Listen to me; stay with me._

The memory washes white-hot, corrosive acid through Sarah’s mind and this time she lets out a sound that’s neither a scream nor a screech.

But a sob. 

A deep, wrenching sob torn straight from the bottom of her heart. Another sob is let loose, and then and another and another and another until the trembling in Sarah’s body collapses in on itself and Sarah, unbidden, crumbles into Winnie’s arms. 

Winnie immediately gathers her up tight and warm and close against her. They sink to the littered floor as Sarah completely collapses against the other woman and she cries and cries and cries. 

“There, sweetheart. There you go”, Winnie softly croons. She rocks Sarah in her arms just a little. Just a little. “Let all of that out, now; it’s alrigh’ now.” 

She glances up to see George still standing nearby, his face still worried and his hands still outstretched. His eyes flit between the woman breaking down in his wife’s arms and his wife’s side. 

Winnie follows his eyes and calls out to him, “George, my rib is fine; she didn’ mean it, anyway. Now go ‘fore you upset her.” 

George steps closer. “But-”

Winnie lifts one arm from Sarah to wave him away. “No. _Go_. Y’don’t need to be here; she doesn’t need to see you righ’ now. Y’got James for the rest of the day. And hurry up-all the noise must’ve spooked him bad, our poor little one.” 

George slowly closes his mouth and nods. He backs away slowly, eyes never leaving them. “O-okay. Alrigh’. Just…jus’ call me if…?” 

“I will. I promise. Now leave, hon. I’ll catch up with you later.” 

He slips out of the Rogers’ tenement, softly closing the door behind him. 

Sarah barely notices her front door closing and only clings tighter to the other woman. She clasps her exhausted arms as tight as she can around Winnie’s waist and holds on as though she’ll disappear into thin air. She buries her face in Winnie’s warm, solid neck and drenches her there in the outpouring of her tears. Her voice is shot from all of her screaming, and so her sobs are mostly silent. She clings to and cries on this strange woman, this Winifred Barnes that protests not one bit. 

Winnie simply holds her back and keeps rocking her. She keeps one arm snug around Sarah’s back and the other hand is buried in Sarah’s tousled hair. Sarah lets out a whimper in-between her sobs and it breaks Winnie’s hearts into a thousand pieces; Winnie nuzzles her cheek atop Sarah’s head, shushing and humming to her as best she can. 

Her eyes soon trail from Sarah to look back at the rickety kitchen table with the open and untouched letter from the U.S Army. She clutches Sarah even closer to her, the determination of a promise welling in her heart. 

“ _Oh_ , honey. It’s gonna be alrigh’. I’m gonna take care of you, now…it’s gonna be alright…” 

-

It takes three days for Sarah to resemble something close to calmed down. 

Three days. 

Her body bursts into random bouts of delirium so debilitating that she cannot get out of the bed Winifred Barnes remade and repaired for her with her own hands. And when the delirium passes on its own time, a wave of crushing exhaustion washes through Sarah and she’ll promptly pass out mid-sob. 

In the back of her mind is a panic that’s separate from the one that’s part of her grief; it is a panic that exists all on its own. 

A panic of what will happen to her baby-to Joseph’s baby-if she doesn’t calm the hell down and calm the hell down _quickly_. 

_Calm down before you miscarry your baby…_

_Calm down before you give birth to a premature baby…_

_Calm down before you give birth to a stillborn baby…_

_Calm down, calm down, for fuck’s sake…calm down…_

But the added, impossible stress of struggling to force her mind and body to do what they cannot only pushes Sarah into renewed fits of delirium. She never knew she could have so many white-hot tears in her eyes, so much staccato rhythms in her heart. 

Through it all is Winifred Barnes by her side. The woman keeps trying and trying to get her to eat just a bowl of porridge, just a mug of soup, and then just a few spoonfuls of porridge, just a few spoonfuls of soup. But Sarah either flat-out cannot eat or when she tries, she vomits up every last bit within the hour. Winnie tucks the covers in tight under Sarah’s chin when chills penetrate down to her bone and presses cold, wet cloths to her body. 

And when the delirium hits hardest, Winifred Barnes is still there. Right there. 

“I-I-I los’ my job by now…I fucking lost m-m-my _job_ ”, Sarah wails on the second day while Winnie tries to get her to drink some tea. 

Winnie smiles softly at her. “Oh, no, darlin’. No, no. I don’ think y’lost your job. Why, I bet wherever you work? You’re one of the _best_ ones they have.” 

“But that d-d-doesn’ matter! Mrs. C-Copeland would pr’bably love t’ kick my ass out a-a-any day now!” 

“Shhh, shh, honey”, Winifred Barnes whispers. She sets the tea cup on the nightstand and then gently pushes at Sarah’s shoulders, trying to get her to lie down. “Let’s worry ‘bout that another day. For now, jus’ try an’ rest, you hear me? Just lay yourself down an’ try to rest…” 

-

On the fourth day, Sarah sleeps. 

She sleeps and sleeps and sleeps. 

Sometimes dreams flit across her lids. Dreams of flaxen hair. Dreams of sky blue eyes. Dreams of Sunday breakfast. She dreams of promises. 

She dreams of promises to be made and promises kept. 

And when her dreams whisk away in wilting wisps of smoke, she slips into such a deep, deep sleep that she’s certain she’s never slept so in all her life. 

When Sarah finally awakens late, late in the night, she finds Winifred Barnes in her kitchen preparing yet another batch of porridge. She lays still, only her eyes blearily tracking the other woman as she moves around her teeny kitchen with ease and skill. 

Sarah distantly registers that the porridge smells downright delicious; it smells better than any other porridge she’s ever encountered, much less managed to make herself. As Winifred Barnes cooks, Sarah’s tenement is filled with the warm, earthy scents of cinnamon and honey expertly mixed together. She notes the intense, cramping growling of her stomach borne of three days with no sustainable nourishment as though it were happening to someone else. 

Someone else who was pregnant. 

And Winifred Barnes is still working in her kitchen. 

Sarah takes as many deep, deep breaths as she can so she can find her voice through the parched grittiness of her throat. She doesn’t dare try to clear her throat, much less cough; she has a feeling that it’d be unwise to bring any more pain to her body. When deep, deep breaths get her nowhere, the next thing she tries is swallowing what little saliva her dry mouth can afford her. But that, too, doesn’t work. 

Every muscle in her body trembles as she then struggles to lift her arm and then drop her arm. After the third try, she must manage something close to it because Winifred Barnes startles, turns around from working at the stove, and rushes to Sarah’s bedside. 

She hovers over Sarah, hands soft and gentle. “Evenin’, sweetheart. ‘S good to see you awake!” 

Sarah blinks sleepily and she thinks she makes a gesture resembling a nod against a pillow. “S-s-srr…sor…” 

The other woman looks worried; her hands grow even softer and gentler. “What’s that, baby? What wrong now? What d’you need?” 

“M srr-”

But Winifred Barnes shakes her head and leans away. “Hang on to that thought, baby. I know what it is and I was jus’ making you something to help with that. Hang on right here. I’ll be righ’ back.” 

Sarah watches as she races back to work for just a little longer at the stove and…and races right back to her with a generous, steaming cup of tea. She can only continue to watch as Winifred Barnes carefully sets the cup, a spoon, and a napkin on the little nightstand. Next, she reaches for Sarah, tenderly placing her hands on Sarah’s shoulders and giving her just as tender a smile. 

“‘M just gonna help you sit up so you can drink some tea, alrigh’, hon?” She explains. “Is that okay?” 

Through the grace of God, Sarah manages to nod her head. 

Winifred Barnes’ tender smile grows wider as she carefully positions her hands under Sarah’s armpits and lifts. As soon as Sarah is vertical, she arranges the pillows to comfortably cushion Sarah’s head and back. She next snugly tucks the covers in around her legs and waist. 

Sarah blinks in the low light from a spare bedside lamp. 

The other woman stirs the cup of tea, and then brings to up to Sarah’s lips. “Here we go, sweetheart. Slow an’ easy, now. Slow an’ easy.” 

Sarah closes her eyes as she obediently takes a sip, another sip, and then another… 

Whatever tea Winifred Barnes prepared for her must be mixed with a combination of milk and honey and cinnamon and… _fuck._ It cascades down her throat like goddamn heavenly ambrosia, washing away every last bit of the clogged, sore grittiness in short order. She can’t stop a moan ripping from her throat and she leans away from her pillows in an attempt to gulp down more. 

The other woman carefully pulls the cup back a bit to keep Sarah from spilling its contents or, worse, choke herself. “Hey, now, honey. Hang on. Little sips now, little sips. Let it wash gently-I’ll get you to the bottom of this cup soon enough. There…there you go.” 

That deep trembling returns anew to Sarah’s muscles as she drinks down warm, wholesome tea, drinks down the strength and presence of Winifred Barnes. When Sarah feels that her throat is a throat again, she pulls her lips away from the cup and turns her head to the side. 

Winifred Barnes obligingly pulls away from her and then places the half-empty teacup on the nightstand. That smile is still there as she asks, “What were you gonna say, baby? Is that better; can y’speak now?” 

Sarah manages yet another nod and then focuses on making her mouth work so that she can speak. It takes nearly four tries before she’s sure that she can make the air passing over her vocal cords form coherent language. Winifred Barnes waits as warmly and patiently as ever the entire time. 

“ M…” Sarah huskily starts. “ M srr-sorry. So s-sorry.” 

Winifred Barnes’ eyes go wide. It’s her turn to try to make her mouth work. “You’re ‘sorry’? Whatever for?” 

“For arr-a-attacking…you. Elbowed…you. S-sorry.” 

“Oh, sweetheart”, Winnifred Barnes sighs. “You didn’ mean-”

Sarah shakes her head. “No. S’wrong. ‘M sorry.” 

Winnifred Barnes looks about to deny yet again that any apology is needed, but Sarah’s face is adamant. The two women end up staring each other down, Winnifred Barnes’ eyes full of unstopped compassion and Sarah’s eyes full of unmoved resolve. 

Winfred Barnes is the first one to crack with a sigh. 

“Well…I’ll accept your apology if you do jus’ one thing for me?” 

“W-wha’s that?” Sarah asks suspiciously. 

“Let me help you; let me take care of you”, she says with not a beat missed. “Let me see you eat and let me see you get clean. Just let me see you get better. And don’t you expect me to leave your side until I see that.” 

Somehow a wry, wry smile lifts a corner of Sarah’s mouth. “…D-don’ think I…got mrr-much choice a-anyway…do I?” 

Winfred Barnes grins at her. “No baby, you don’.” 

The other corner of Sarah’s mouth nearly lifts and she whispers, “…You must think ‘M crazy. Crazy as hell.” 

But Winifred Barnes ardently shakes her head. “No, sweetheart. Not at all. Not one bit. Quite the opposite-the total opposite, actually.”

Sarah can’t remember what she says or does in response to that. But she does remember falling back asleep in short order, the feel of Winfred Barnes stroking her hair soothing any and all nightmares far, far away.

-

On the fifth day, Sarah manages to be awake and stay awake in mid-morning. 

Winifred Barnes is still there. 

She’s once again in the kitchen, flitting around like a hummingbird from stove to counter to cabinet and back again. The scents of honey and cinnamon and milk waft all through her tenement once more. 

Sarah’s stomach growls. 

As though she heard it loud and clear from her position at the stove, Winifred Barnes turns around with a soft, sweet smile on her face. 

Sarah somehow manages something resembling a smile in return. 

Winifred Barnes fiddles with a dial on the stove, picks up what’s surely yet another heavenly, steaming cup of tea, and then walks over to where Sarah lies. Sarah briefly feels her world grounded and centered as the other woman sits down next to her. She has an easier time letting Winifred Barnes help her sit up in bed so she can take a few long, blissful sips of that tea. 

When Sarah is done, Winifred Barnes sets the tea cup on the nightstand with a gentle _c-clink_. That smile is still on her face. 

“Mornin’, baby”, she greets. “Y’feel like eatin’ a few bites of breakfast for me this time ‘round?” 

Sarah nods slowly. “‘M hungry as shit, so…might as…well.” 

Winfried Barnes beams at her. In the next few moments, there’s a chipped, rickety tray that Sarah doesn’t recognize laid across her lap. The tray is laden with a fresh cup of tea, a glass of milk, some cut-up fruit, and a generous, steaming bowl of that honey-and-cinnamon porridge right in the middle. 

Sarah’s stomach growls like an underbelly cave monster. 

She’s halfway to deciding that she should try to lift her hands to feed herself when Winifred Barnes beats her to it. She mercifully dives the spoon right into the porridge, brings it to Sarah’s lips and-

 _Mrrmmm…_ ”, Sarah moans. 

Winifred Barnes grins. “I feel the exact same way seein’ you eating, sweetie. The exact same way.” 

The next spoonful has Sarah trying to take the entire spoon in her mouth and gulping down the sweet, sweet breakfast fare in short order. But the other woman firmly, but gently, pulls the spoon back. 

“Shh. Slow, sweetheart, slow. Just like with the cup of tea, hmm? I’m gonna make sure you get ev’ry last bit a’this in your stomach; the contents of this meal ain’ goin’ anywhere other than in your mouth. I promise.” 

Winifred Barnes puts the spoon back in the porridge and gives it a good stir or two before putting it back to Sarah’s lips. “But you gotta take it slow, lest you can’t keep it down an’ hurt yourself. Slow an’ easy does it…that’s it.” 

Sarah obliges with no little bit of grumbling and mumbled complaints. She tries and fails to glare at Winifred Barnes, whose eyes glitter with wry, gentle amusement.

Soon the tray becomes lighter. The cup of tea is completely empty; the glass of milk is completely empty; the fruit is cleaned out; and the bowl of porridge is spotless. Sarah, transfixed from feeling full for the first time in _days_ , stays still as Winifred Barnes tenderly wipes her mouth and chin clean. She’s still transfixed as she watches her take the tray to the kitchen for cleaning later. 

“Thank you, baby”, she says. “Thank you for eating breakfast for me. Y’really made my day, y’know that?” 

“No, Mrs. Barnes”, Sarah quietly counters. “Y’made…mine. Several times…over.” 

Winifred Barnes smiles a smile that’s somehow as encouraging as it is sad. She leans over and around Sarah to fluff up the pillows behind her back. “Well, if that’s the case, then do me the honor of jus’ callin’ me ‘Winnie’. For fuck’s sake, I can’t be much older than you. Please an’ thank you, ma’am.” 

Sarah chortles somehow. Somehow. “Yes, ma’am. ‘Winnie’ i-it is.” 

Winifred B- _Winnie_ smiles all over again. She finishes adjusting the pillows and then moves on to tucking the blankets back over Sarah. “Now, how ‘bout you-”

Sarah reaches out and grabs the other woman’s wrist. “W-wait. Please. I don’…I can’t sleep. No more. I jus’…I know ‘M still tired, but…please. N’more sleep.” 

Winnie’s hands pause on the blanket. She gazes into Sarah’s eyes and nods slowly. “Alright, sweetie. Okay. Whatchu wanna do, then? Y’want more food?” 

“N-no, I don’…no, thank you.” Sarah has to pause to take a deep, deep breath before she can make her request. “C-could you…d’you know a good…church? Catholic?” 

“Oh!” Winnie’s eyes light up. “Sure, baby-I’m Catholic, too. Irish Catholic, in fact-yeah, I can hear that lovely brogue in your voice, too. So you wanna…?” 

Sarah can only nod. 

Winnie nods back. “Well, then we’re lucky it’s a weekday that ain’ Wednesday, huh? Lemme run us both a bath, first, hmm? I think we could both use one real, real bad.” 

And with that, Winnie plants a quick, sweet kiss on Sarah’s forehead. Sarah bites her lip as a fresh wave of shame washes over her. This…this woman had been so busy, so vigilant taking care of her for nearly a _week_ that she hadn’t even had time (or energy) to bathe herself? 

Sarah stares at her as though she has three heads. The fuck kind of woman was this?

Her mind goes back to being blank as she watches Winnie working the tub. Winnie lets the water run until it gets nice and hot and steamy. She then adds a fragrant bubble bath that’s most definitely not Sarah’s and soon the whole of the Rogers tenement is filled with the floral scent of lavender. Sarah inhales deeply and feels all the more eager to get rid of the stinky, gritty, grunginess that clings to her. 

Winnie only leaves the hot, fresh running bathwater for a few moments to clean up and put away the tray and its contents. She shuts the water off when the tub is halfway full. Then she walks back over to Sarah with that smile back on her face and renewed determination in her eyes. 

“Alright, honey”, she says. “You just grab on tight to me and we’re gonna get you outta this bed and naked into this tub. _No_ rushing, either. Just hang on tight to me an’ we’re gonna get there in time.” 

Sarah can only nod as she lets Winnie pull the covers back from her. Winnie extends her arms to her and Sarah slowly, shakily grabs onto her forearms for support. It’s an eternity and then some for them to stand up straight together from the bed and then begin to slowly, carefully make their way to the tub. Winnie has Sarah lean against the wall while she strips both of them down and tosses their dirty, smelly clothes into the secondhand hamper. 

Neither Winnie nor Sarah feel the slightest bit self-conscious as, completely naked, they make their slow way for the tub’s edge. Winnie makes sure Sarah is standing as close to the tub as possible and she holds Sarah tight and secure around her waist. 

“One foot at time, baby”, Winnie softly advises. “Right foot first might be best, hmm?” 

Sarah nods slowly and does as she’s bid. She takes forever to first lift her right leg, extend it enough so that it’s over the lip of the tub, and then carefully lower the leg into the hot-

“Oh, _fuck_ …fucking _hell_ ”, Sarah moans. Her head lolls back against Winnie’s shoulder as she closes her eyes. 

Winnie tenses behind her. Her voice alarmed, she asks, “What, is the water too hot?! Oh, I’m so sorry, Sarah-I shoulda tested it first! I-”

“ _No_ ”, Sarah moans. She eagerly sinks her leg further in so her foot touches the bottom of the tub. “No, no. ‘S perfect. Wonderful. Fucking…goddamn, it’s wonderful…” 

“Oh”, Winnie chuckles. “Good! Well then, I bet it’ll be even more so when both of us are fully in there, huh, baby?” 

“Mmm- _hmm_ ”, Sarah eagerly agrees. 

It takes another minute or so for Winnie to help Sarah fully sit into the bath. Sarah rests against the tub’s edge and she almost cries it feels so _good_. Winnie chuckles as she slides into the tub on the opposite side, facing Sarah. She, too, gives a moan of relief. 

The heat of the water seems to seep into Sarah’s muscles, veins, bones, all the way down to her soul. A pleased shudder ripples over her as some semblance of order and vitality appears to return to her body. She wakes up more and more; she becomes conscious more and more. She almost feels something like a human again.

And as she wakes up…as she becomes conscious…

She starts to look at the woman opposite her, at Winifred Barnes. _Really_ look at her. 

Rather than be more on the pale side than most Irish women, Winnie’s skin holds the promise of being able to strongly, robustly tan. It’s already just a tad darker and richer than Sarah’s. She’s just a little rounder, a little softer than Sarah; one of her legs that’s pressed flush against Sarah’s under the water feels impossibly soft and supple.

Her lips are fuller; her perfectly oval face tapers down into a chin with an adorable cleft; her cheekbones are high and round; and her nose is a straight, pretty line. Her hair is light-brown with rich mixtures of auburn and is haphazardly tied into a bun atop her head. Tendrils fall, random and messy, all over her face. 

Her eyes…her eyes are a stark, clear gray-blue. They remind Sarah of the kind of blue sky that could promise either sunniness or precipitation with no warning. But you couldn’t mind either way if you tried because there’s still all of that gray, gray _blue_ to look at. 

And save for the shadows under her eyes and the slight slump of her shoulders, there is no trace on Winnie that she’s cared for a grieving, delirious, pregnant woman for the better part of a week. 

Winnie sees Sarah openly looking and grins cheekily at her. 

“Well, hello ma’am-you’re easy on the eyes, too!” Winnie says. She grabs the bar of soap and one of the wet washcloths off a part of the tub’s ledge and starts lathering. “Y’get a good fill?” 

God help her, but were Sarah Rogers any other woman, she would’ve had the good, decent sense to blush. Duck her head. Hell, maybe even stutter. 

Instead Sarah Rogers grins back and says, “‘S gettin’ there, Mrs. Winnie. Gettin’ there. You’re…really gorgeous.” 

Winnie grins even wider. Sarah can only match it. 

And Sarah…some insane part of her mind almost swears that that was nearly the woman she was before. Before-

She’s exhausted. 

“So you are you, baby. So are you”, Winnie says sincerely. She finishes lathering the washcloth and then leans forward to start washing Sarah. 

“W-wait”, Sarah says. 

Winnie obligingly pulls the washcloth back. 

Sarah grabs the other washcloth and the soap and lathers as the other woman did. Then she leans forward to start washing Winnie’s arm with a smile. “I think…this’ll make it…easier. Nicer. Hmm?” 

Winnie nods with her own smile and starts her own washing of Sarah. “Oh, yeah. ‘S get us to the church quicker, too.” 

The two women fall into silence as they wash each other. Winnie doesn’t seem to mind at all that Sarah’s movements are jerky and uneven. In fact, she seems to take just as much pleasure and comfort in being washed as Sarah does. They show not a hint of bashfulness or discomfort when they have to reposition so the other woman can wash her private parts-they’ve both done this before, back home in Ireland in a much-too small house with only one tub and water that _may_ be lukewarm and clean if one is lucky. They’ve done this on the boat that brought them to this strange land.

They’ve done this before. 

And so this time…this time it feels like home. This time it almost feels ritualistic. 

Neither one pretends that they’re washing away the past week. Neither one pretends that they can do that here, in this bath. 

But it feels better. 

Winnie washes with extra reverence over Sarah’s rounded stomach. 

When they’re done, there’s a brownish ring around the bathtub. Just before they brush their own teeth, Winnie promises she’ll clean it later against Sarah’s protests. They step together out of the bathtub and dry each other off with the same easiness with which they washed each other. It is the same when they dress each other. 

Winnie puts her hair in a bun. She does the same to Sarah’s hair. 

Sarah blinks down at the unfamiliar light-pink dress with its purple-and-blue flower print. It’s just slightly big on her, but is otherwise a prettier dress than she usually wears. She glances at Winnie over her shoulder, who’s tying the decorative tie in the back. 

Winnie smiles at her and softly explains, “I’ll fix all of your clothes soon enough, honey. I will. But for now, I hope this’ll-”

“It’s beautiful”, Sarah cuts in. “Thank you. So much.” 

Winnie hugs her tightly from behind. “You’re welcome. So much.” 

And Sarah would’ve insisted that Winnie does _not_ have to fix her clothes, but in the next instance, Winnie is fastening a wide-brimmed straw hat on her head. Sarah notes that it smells good, like the dress…like Winnie. 

The shoes she puts on are hers. Thankfully. 

Sarah has to take her slow, slow time climbing down the stairs of the tenement to get to the street outside. The street outside where Winnie will supposedly lead her to an Irish Catholic church where she can-

She’s exhausted. 

On each slow step down, down, down, Winnie stays with her, holds tight to her. Winnie keeps one hand in hers while the other is warm and firm around her back. 

“I’ve gotchu, sweetheart. I’ve gotchu”, Winnie keeps murmuring. “Jus’ take it slow an’ easy. That’s it, that’s right-take your time. We’re gonna get there…that’s righ’…” 

And before Sarah knows it, they’re standing outside of the tenement, on the pavement. Sarah…Sarah would’ve thought that the usual chaotic hustle and bustle of Brooklyn would assault her senses something awful. 

Instead she cannot hear it; she cannot see it. Not even the early afternoon sun ahead is too bright for her. The only thing she can bear to take notice of is Winnie’s continued proximity to her. 

“I’m hailin’ us a taxi, honey”, Winnie explains as she waves her arm to do just that. “The church actually ain’ that far, but I know you don’t got much energy to be walking righ’ now. I want you t’be as comfortable as possible.” 

Sarah can only lay her head on Winnie’s shoulder in silent gratitude. A taxi pulls up to the curb they stand on before long. Winnie ushers Sarah in first, and then climbs in after. Sarah automatically cuddles up against the other woman’s side, not even waiting or listening for Winnie to tell the driver where to go. 

Sarah closes her eyes, takes off the hat, and snuggles her head into Winnie’s neck the whole ride. Winnie wraps an arm tightly around her in turn, rubbing up and down her shoulder; her other hand grasps Sarah’s, her thumb running back and forth over Sarah’s knuckles. Back and forth. 

Less than 10 minutes and the taxi comes to a stop in front of Winnie’s Irish Catholic Church. Winnie pays the driver with a smile and then slowly gets Sarah and herself out of the car. 

Sarah still can neither see nor hear anything and so she cannot take in the church in front of her. But she feels deep within her heart a renewed ache, a renewed feeling of _home_. 

Winnie continues to hold onto her as they step up to the church and open one of the large double doors. 

There is a man in the middle of the pews, in the aisle. He is sweeping methodically with a straw broom. He is a priest and his back is initially turned to them as he sweeps up and down, up and down. 

Upon hearing the creak of the front door opening, he turns around with a smile on his face. Sarah can see that he has large, soft brown eyes that remind her of a doe and rich, dark brown hair. He is tall and thin, but the fullness of his face shows that he is not malnourished. His smile is warm and welcoming. 

“Good afternoon to you, Winifred!” He greets in a deep, cheerful voice. His brogue is strong and hearty. “We’ve missed you at service for the past week. I see you’ve brought a new friend with you.” 

Sarah’s stomach drops like a stone to her feet. Winnie…Winnie missed service because of _her_. It was _her_ fault, _all_ her fault. How could she not think of all the trouble she’s been causing this woman and-

Winnie’s arm tightens demonstrably around her waist as though she could guess Sarah’s thoughts. She still looks at the priest and the returning smile she gives him has not the slightest bit of strain.

“Yes, I have indeed been missin’ service, Father Isaac”, Winnie agrees. “But in lieu of service, I’ve been doin’ the Lord’s work in other ways.” 

Winnie gestures to Sarah with a nod of her head. “This is my new friend, Sarah. Sarah Rogers. I brought her here ‘cause she wanted t’come here. She’s an Irish Catholic, jus’ like us.” 

“She…she needs you. You can do things for her that I can’t.” 

Father Isaac inclines his head and comes closer. He turns his gaze onto Sarah and his eyes radiate warmth like the sun above. 

“Hello, Sarah Rogers”, he greets softly. “Are you here for a confession?” 

Sarah shakes her head. “No, Father. I-I don’t need a confession righ’ now.” 

“Then what is it you require? Simply tell me and I will do my best to provide it.” 

Sarah swallows. “I require…compassion. If you have it here. Please.” 

Father Isaac’s smile grows so big and so warm and so assuring that Sarah’s knees would give out from under her save for Winnie’s arm around her. He comes even closer until he’s standing right in front of them.

“Ahh, you have come to the right place, then, Sarah Rogers. There is compassion abound within God’s house.” 

Sarah can’t help but smile back at him. 

Winny gently rubs her back. “I got a few errands t’run, baby. So I’ll come back to pick you up in a few hours. I won’t be too far; I’ll mostly be grocery shoppin’ ‘round here.” 

“And if I come back, and you’re still not done, you just take your time; take all the time you need. I got plen’y ‘nough to do, kay?”

“I want and need you t’take your time”, Winnie says. She presses a warm, lingering kiss against Sarah’s brow. Her eyes intensely bore into hers when she pulls away. “You understand me? _Take your time._ ”

Sarah finds herself struggling to move her mouth to say “thank you” once again. Say thank you and why are you doing this and how can you be so kind and how can you be so generous and what the _fuck_ is wrong with you and-

Winnie smiles knowingly at her and presses yet another kiss to her face, this time to her cheek. She says, “I’ll see you soon, baby.” 

And then both Winnie and Father Isaac are helping Sarah to sit down with him in one of the pews, Winnie is gone off to run her errands, and Sarah finds herself sitting alone with Father Isaac. 

Father Isaac is ever warm and welcoming. He sits with her as though they’ve been best friends all their lives. “Whenever you are ready, Mrs. Rogers.” 

Sarah blinks at him and then looks all around the church while still not seeing it. Her eyes settle back on his face that’s full of patient expectation. At first, Sarah tries to go ahead and open her mouth and…talk.

Talk about what she needs to talk about. But…but each and every time she keeps trying to open her mouth, a heavy caving in her chest smashes down any and all air in her throat until she can’t say anything. Can’t make a sound. 

So she tries something different. 

She scoots closer to Father Isaac until she’s flush against him, leg-to-leg. Father Isaac doesn’t protest the contact-on the contrary, he offers his hand to her and she grasps it tightly in hers. It’s warm, just like all the rest of him is. 

She tries to swallow down that heavy caving in her chest. It works-she makes some kind of coherent sound resembling the start of a conversation. “I…shi-gracious, I dunno where to even start, Father…” 

Father Isaac gently squeezes her hand. “I have it on good faith that it’s best to start at the beginning. And the beginning…is wherever you choose for it to be.” 

“And if you find that, somewhere in the middle, you need to go back and have another beginning?” He continues. “Then you may do that, child-you should do that. We all have a great many beginnings and endings. Therefore, you can have as few or as many as you need.” 

He rubs his thumb over her knuckles. “And it is just as your friend Winifred said: take your time. You’ve all the time in the world in God’s house.” 

It’s all Sarah can do to nod. She tries again and that heavy caving in her chest comes back, comes full force. She does her best to breathe through it because she has to…she has to get it out. She has to _say_ it-

Say it. 

Sarah breaks her gaze away from Father Isaac to yet again look unseeingly all around the church. She…she’s really here and she’s really going to have to say it because it’s true and it happened and it doesn’t matter that she’s still waiting for someone or something to tell her that this is all some cruel joke or misunderstanding and it doesn’t matter that she’ll still be waiting months and months down the line and it doesn’t matter…

Her free hand goes to her stomach. 

She has to say it. Someway, somehow she has to say it. Father Isaac can’t read her mind and Sarah Rogers is still far, far too prideful and stubborn to do something like find Winnie and bring her back here so she can say it for her. So she has to…she has to… 

And so Sarah says it. She says it as well as she _can_ say it. 

“M-my husband. He…the war. He was a soldier. And I-he…” That heavy caving in her chest pushes the rest of the air out of her vocal cords and she cannot continue. She cannot go on. 

She did her best. 

But she needn’t have worried-Father Isaac understood. Perfectly. 

“...May I simply call you Sarah?” He starts. Softly, gently. 

Sarah nods. 

“Sarah, may I hug you?” He asks. Still softly, gently. 

At that, Sarah shakes her head with a smile. “No, Father. I-I’d rather you didn’. ‘Cause if you move and I move, I’m gonna…” 

Father Isaac nods in assent and stays right where he is. Their hands are still joined. “I understand, Sarah. Then would you like…?” 

“Yes. Yes, I would, please.” Sarah’s free hand caresses her stomach. 

“Of course, child.” 

Father Isaac closes his eyes and bows his head. Sarah does the same. 

Father Isaac recites: 

_“In your hands, O Lord,_

_we humbly entrust our brothers and sisters._

_In this life you embraced them with your tender love;_

_deliver them now from every evil_

_and bid them eternal rest._

_The old order has passed away:_

_welcome them into paradise,_

_where there will be no sorrow, no weeping or pain,_

_but fullness of peace and joy_

_with your Son and the Holy Spirit_

_forever and ever._

“Amen.” 

“Amen.” 

-

The U.S Army gives her money. Sarah barely pays attention to the envelope carrying the notification-as far as she’s concerned, it’s some kind of fuck all pension, some kind of fuck all compensation.

For mustard gas. 

If Sarah could bear to think about it for any length of time, it’s money that’ll last her for a good few months whether she’s kept her job or not. They notify that they give her this money through just as impersonal a letter as the one that told her Joseph-

They give her this money like it can replace Joseph’s flesh and blood, Joseph’s warmth, Joseph’s life. 

They give her husband’s body back to her in a plain, nondescript wooden casket. Mustard gas is irrevocably deadly, but it’s not a bomb. It’s not a grenade. It’s not a machine gun. So they give her husband’s body back to her with the mention that they’re glad they could find his body at all. In one piece. With his identifiers still on his person. With his face still intact. With his whole body still in one piece. To fit in one coffin, they tell her. 

She’s one of the lucky ones, they tell her. 

The rare, rare lucky ones, they tell her. 

They give her a Purple Heart. Her husband’s Purple Heart. When they offer it to her, she holds the case in her hands and sees that it’s a fuck all piece of expensive purple ribbon with a bit of fuck all gold attached to it. Some fuck all president’s face that she doesn’t care to learn or remember is engraved on the bit of fuck all gold. 

And they tell her both in writing and in words that such a medal is under no circumstances given on a whim to just anyone. No, her Joseph was posthumously awarded such because he was courageous, because he was compassionate, because he was valorous, because he was dedicated. 

They tell her this as though she should be half proud and half surprised at how her husband conducted himself at the front. 

They give her her husband’s Purple Heart to tell her everything she already knew about her husband.

And they give her…they give her back Joseph’s suitcase. She holds it in her lap and sees that it…if one didn’t know better they would’ve never thought it went with a soldier to war. There are but a few scratches here and there, maybe a little mark that looks like leftover soot here and there, but…

It looks just about the same as it did before he left. 

What Sarah finds within Joseph’s suitcase nearly sends her into a fresh, new bout of delirium. There are his old clothes, lovingly and thoughtfully folded and wrapped up tight by his fellow soldiers. There are his toiletries-his shaving cream; his razor; his hairbrush; his toothbrush; his toothpaste; and a few other things. There are his few pictures of them together, again lovingly and thoughtfully encased in a waterproof plastic bag by his fellow soldiers. 

There are his letters to her that he never got the chance to send to her before the mustard gas. 

There are two new stuffed animals for their baby-one a giraffe and one a panda-that he never got the chance to send to her before the mustard gas. 

Sarah rearranges the contents of her husband’s suitcase in no particular order. Just something that vaguely looks neat. The stuffed animals are the only things she takes out. She puts his Purple Heart and his uniform inside amongst the other things.

She then closes the suitcase and puts it high, high up on the shelf in the closet. She closes the closet door and the _ca-click_ reverberates in her ears unbidden. 

She caresses her round stomach as she walks to the kitchen. 

Winnie is there at the stove, making dinner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I researched and found the prayer for Joseph's death [here](http://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/bereavement-and-funerals/prayers-for-death-and-dying.cfm). It's under the "Prayer for the Dead" section, which I thought would be most appropriate for the situation. 
> 
> Thanks so much for reading and, as always, lemme know what you think!


End file.
